Bill Flanagan

🏎️💨 Making of a Ridiculously Fast™ API client in R. Why my package is **~17x faster** than the community alternatives that call the **exact same API endpoints**. 👇🏽**design choices matter** ✨ https://lnkd.in/ggi_2XyQ

129

2 Comments

Some updates to my #FeatureFlags demo app (https://lnkd.in/eQd23gfU) - I've added an "Explain" view that outlines why a particular variant was chosen (based on the current context and rules). This is a companion piece to my feature flags book (read it at https://lnkd.in/ehxiy6bY).

10

In other news today, Delta Lake UniForm is now Generally Available. No more data silos, interoperability FTW! UniForm allows you to use a single table format for your lakehouse, getting the top-of-the-line performance and features of Databricks and Delta Lake, but being able to access the data using *any* engine that supports *any* of the common lakehouse formats Delta Lake, Iceberg, or Hudi.

45

Thank you to Jason Lengstorf for talking with me at CityJS Conferences about reducing stress for #softwareengineers, and sharing practical tips for advancing a coding career. + Get a sneak peek at "Web Lunch", Jason's latest series. Link down below!👇

10

1 Comment

Level up your React apps with the power of deferred values! This past week, I teamed up with an epic crew of rockstars for a project that's been an absolute blast! While my partner in crime, Alexander Lay, wrangles the backend with C# in the .NET framework, I dove headfirst into the React.JS frontier. My React skills are exploding faster than a supernova, and guess what awesome feature I stumbled upon? Deferred values! Think of deferred values as giving your app the ultimate multitasking superpower. When you defer a value, it lets your app prioritise the most critical updates, keeping things smooth and responsive. Here's the magic: Imagine a user typing furiously in a search box. With deferred values, the UI stays silky smooth. Instead of tripping over every keystroke, the app tackles high-priority stuff first, like rendering the screen, then chills in the background processing the search. This keeps the user happy with a lag-free experience (no more jumpy searches!). But wait, there's more! Deferred values become the ultimate performance dream team when paired with cleanup functions. ‍♀️ Cleanup functions are like tiny ninjas that swoop in when a component disappears, cancelling any unfinished tasks. This prevents memory leaks and stops updates to components that are no longer there. Imagine a user zipping away from the search page – the cleanup function swoops in, gracefully cancelling any lingering searches, keeping everything running like a well-oiled machine. ️ Without cleanup functions, it's like trying to update a state that vanished – a recipe for disaster! This project has been a treasure trove of front-end development knowledge, and I'm stoked about the progress we've made. My journey might just inspire you on your coding adventures too! Remember, deferred values and proper cleanup are your best buds for building efficient and rock-solid applications. Read this article for more information on Deffered Values: https://lnkd.in/etgPkK8W #ReactJS #FrontendDevelopment #JavaScript #WebDevelopment #LearningJourney #DeferredValues #CleanUpFunctions #PerformanceOptimization

10

When I first started writing about APIs ten years ago, most executives didn't even know what APIs were. Pitching from the bottom up was a hard sell. But nowadays, the conversation has changed. "There's no more need to convince," Kin Lane told me. "The trick now is how you educate, align, and keep them investing in the right areas and not getting distracted." "Most organizations already have dozens, hundreds, or more APIs," says Adam DuVander. "They’ve had a chance to see the benefits. They’ve also noticed the downsides of API sprawl. Both of these things bring more awareness at the executive level." My latest post on the Treblle blog looks at why there's increasing interest in API strategies at the executive level. I think leadership is realizing the operational benefits, seeing the monetization potential, and coming to terms with the need to govern a burgeoning catalog of services. There are even new roles in the c-suite emerging to oversee API strategies. Hope people enjoy reading this one! And I hope it reflects the final nail in the coffin of articles about 'why we need APIs.' 😉 https://lnkd.in/e8k9xvpr

33

3 Comments

4 Things You Should Put in Your Daily Dev Log To harvest meaningful patterns from your dev log, you’ll need to capture the same things daily. I’ve been engineering software for 25 years, and I’ll share what I’ve routinely kept in mine. Your context is different, so your list will be also. Just make sure you capture the same things daily. Use this list as a skeleton to start from. It’s easier when you aren’t starting from a blank page! Pull Requests I keep track of every PR I submit, approve, or merge. Almost any work product I deliver or review flows through Git. My lists of PRs serve as a personal task-level kanban board of work in progress that I am connected to. These help me easily reconstruct a story of what I’ve done throughout the week. Personal Interactions I make note of every personal interaction I have, scheduled or otherwise. In addition to these notes, I keep a page for each person, and I link to that page from my daily notes. As I note patterns of interaction with a person, I’ll describe those patterns on their page. Over time I build a library of every person I’ve collaborated with and what we worked on together. Project Actions I keep a running narrative of the things I’m working on. I keep a section for each thing I’m working on. These might be at the product or story level - it just depends. Each time I hit a stopping point or interruption, I make a note of what I’ve been doing and what I plan to do next. Guess what I use to inform my daily standup updates? Perplexing Puzzles I make a note of everything that surprises me. These could be strange program behaviors, blockers, production issues - anything unexpected. As I review these periodically, I ask myself how I can use what I’ve learned to improve my mental models. Hopefully this list helps you get past the starting line. Do this faithfully for several months and see where it takes you!

8

8 Comments

It is important to revisit concepts that might have eluded me. Take the Intuit Lacerte Software Development Kit (SDK). For the non-programmers, a Software Development Kit is instructions and tools for connecting to local data sources. Think of them as APIs but for accessing local data and hardware instead of cloud data. The first time I looked at the Lacerte SDK over a decade ago, I did not understand how it worked. The best I was able to do was to pull basic client information (names and address) for generating mailing labels. This was before my firm was doing digital delivery. As I started using Robot Process Automation (RPA) tools to input data into Lacerte, I learned about batch input. This let me gain a new understanding of the structure of Lacerte's data. Just last winter, I built some RPA tools to read organizer PDFs from Lacerte to build Document Requests List in SafeSend and Firm360. This let me gain a new understanding of the flow of Lacerte's data. Just a month ago, I connected with TruePrep AI to build tools for inputting data into Lacerte. My original plan was an RPA method since it was something I was familiar with. In that moment, I had decided to take another look at the Lacerte SDK. With an additional 10+ years of experience in understanding Lacerte's data structure and data flow, the SDK all makes sense. In my excitement of applying new knowledge, I can now generate those previous Document Request Lists more efficiently as well as add, update, and delete data from Lacerte. What does this mean? It means, custom import tools that can be catered to a firm's workflow like trial balances, depreciation, etc. It is always important to revisit concepts that have been previously elusive. We are the sum of our experiences and even a few months (from winter to spring) can change how we find solutions to problems.

31

3 Comments

As of today, I've been blogging for 20 years. Over this long period of time, blogging has evolved quite a bit and so has my own publication: what started as an informal blog with short "thought of the day"-style of posts has become a "newsletter" with much more elaborate content. Read on for a recap of the history of my own blog, some reflections on how and why the content has had to change, and my impressions so far with the Substack experiment I've been running. https://lnkd.in/gyvVKE2M

22

These are great tips for an junior dev. Especially the suggestion to become the "go-to person" in a particular topic. It's a great way to become an elevated contributor on a team. https://lnkd.in/gqUZSn39

5

🤖🐍 A.I., Snake Oil, and Miracle-Cure Expectations https://lnkd.in/emSQAHzE Here's Josh Clark with a fantastic call for more nuance around how we think about machine learning and AI. These things are tools — not panaceas — and we need to be able to discern how best to put them to work. "The best response to failed experiments is not, 'What a dumb idea, there’s nothing here.' For what it’s worth, I prefer: 'What can we learn from this? What’s next?'" I'm so grateful to have a partner with such a reasoned perspective on all of this. Thanks to Josh I've been able to become more curious and excited about these technologies without losing my sense of (what I feel to be) warranted skepticism and anxiety. #ai #machinelearning #ux #design #snakeoil

26

1 Comment

Had a chat with Eric Meyer and Brian Kardell about CSS masonry, does it belong in the grid spec or not? With a bit of a discussion about how and why we ask for developer feedback on CSS. https://lnkd.in/d3C-_dwq #css

33

During my time at LoopQA, I've found that an effective model for leveraging automation involves a clear division of responsibilities between development and QA teams. I'll caveat this by saying, I generally advocate for developers to refactor the automation they break, but the reality is that most organizations aren't willing to invest their time into it. Hence, having a dedicated QA team for E2E tests often proves more practical. Here's a typical and highly functional workflow: Local Development: -Developers work on their local environments. -They run unit tests and integration tests to ensure their code is functioning as expected. Dev/Test Environment: -Code is merged into a shared Dev/Test environment. -Unit/Integration Tests: These tests must pass before any merge can occur. If they fail, the merge fails. -E2E Sanity Tests: These are also run, but they can fail for both valid and invalid reasons. Developers need to be adept at identifying actual bugs versus new legitimate failures. -Automation teams step in to refactor failing E2E tests to ensure stability. A common problem here is when dev teams opt not to refactor failing tests, leading to false negatives and potential issues down the line. Stage/Pre-Prod Environment: -After passing all tests, the code moves to the Stage/Pre-Prod environment. -Any merge to this environment is contingent on passing E2E tests along with unit and integration tests. Production Environment -Finally, the tested and validated code is merged into the Production environment. Key Insights: -This model ensures that unit/integration tests act as crucial gatekeepers, providing immediate feedback to developers. -E2E tests, maintained by the QA team, ensure overall system validation and highlight integration issues early. -Collaboration and clear division of responsibilities between dev and QA teams maximize the value of automation, leading to robust and reliable code delivery. #SoftwareDevelopment #QA #Testing #DevOps #SoftwareQuality #Automation #ContinuousIntegration #ContinuousDeployment

47

9 Comments

While I'm not a fan of SFTP integrations, they remain a tool we need to be familiar with as some applications still offer this as their means of integration. We just published a guide on automating CSV file creation using Make , showcasing how we can still embrace older methods within modern workflows. Check out the blog for detailed steps from data retrieval to CSV structuring—it's all about making the necessary tools work to get the outcome we need. https://lnkd.in/eeTw9Z8x

9

1 Comment

How do you make technical folks trust your marketing? The mistake we notice companies make, again and again, is to promote a solution before they’ve shown they know about the problem developers want to solve. What strategies have you found effective to demonstrate you understand dev problems?

7

2 Comments

Infrequent intricate initiatives where imperfection imposes immense implications or DNS and Other Taxes A quick reference for the next time you're setting up DNS after a long time of not thinking about it. https://lnkd.in/eysVDGdT

3

2 Comments