Sign up for the cultivate newsletter to get our best advice straight to your inbox
We’ll keep you posted with a few emails per month. You can, of course, opt out at any time.
- How to avoid becoming a Cargo Cult
In the first part of this article series, we learned about a Melanesian tribe that started to practice a Cargo Cult. In this second part of the article series, I want to provide some advice on how you and your […] - Fixing tests with more than 3 expectations
In the newest episode of our YouTube channel, I want to discuss a test anti-pattern that is one of the reasons many developers hate writing tests. Let’s look at a poor example of tests with more than 3 expectations per […] - Is your team practicing a Cargo Cult?
In 1962 a research group arrived with their boat on a small Melanesian island in the south pacific ocean. Their goal was to study the local tribe of the island. Soon after they arrived, they started to observe some very […] - Test Anti-pattern: Not using the best available matcher
Here’s another common test anti-pattern that makes working with tests harder than it needs to be. 🛑 Test Anti-pattern 🛑 Not using the best available matcher Matchers are little helper functions that let you verify test conditions more elegantly. Most […] - Breaking Chocolate with TDD
Welcome to the first episode of my new Youtube channel, which will be all about smart software engineering practices that will help you with building better software faster. In this first episode, I want to show you how to solve […] - Test Anti-pattern: Copy-pasting real data as test data
Over the years, I’ve observed developers applying dozens of anti-patterns to testing. The result: An expensive test suite that is not fun to work with. Here is one of these test anti-patterns: 🛑 Test Anti-pattern 🛑 Copy-pasting real data as […] - Comparing eXtreme Programming to Scrum, Kanban, and Waterfall
Does adopting Agile approaches really improve your and your team’s software delivery performance? And if yes, which methodology is better? Scrum, Kanban, or eXtreme Programming? It’s not easy to measure the positive impact of adopting Agile practices. No software project […] - Test Anti-pattern: Adding more than 3 expectations to a test case
Many developers hate having to write tests. Besides literally not knowing how to do it, the reason is often a test suite full of anti-patterns that is not fun to work with. Here is one of the dozens of testing […] - Global Day of Coderetreat
This year’s Global Day of Coderetreat was another great success! Last Friday, we came together in our Berlin office to improve our craft as software engineers. Software developers usually have to focus on daily work and getting things done. ❌ […] - Too DRY – When Don’t Repeat Yourself goes wrong
Component-based frontend frameworks like React support the DRY principle: Don’t Repeat Yourself. Following the DRY principle is an excellent way to eliminate code duplication. But unfortunately, sometimes, developers overdo it. And that leads to strange hard-to-debug behavior and code that […] - useEffect – How to test React Effect Hooks
The useEffect hook is probably one of the more confusing React hooks. At first, we wonder when to use it, then we struggle to understand how to use it, and eventually, the guilt kicks in, and we ask how to […] - How to find a developer job – like a computer scientist
The job hunt can be a very frustrating experience. First, we are overwhelmed by all the possible things we need to do. And then we get stuck. Then demotivated. And sometimes even depressed. The good news: It doesn’t have to […] - How to build UI components like a Pro [Part 2]
In Part 1 of this article series, we used a Test-first approach to develop a Light component that can be switched on and off again. And we utilized the Accessibility (a11y) API to interact with the component in our tests. […] - How to build UI components like a Pro [Part 1]
Software engineering is about writing code that works. But how do we actually know that our code works? Well, we have to test it. Take web apps, for instance. I often see developers implementing new components while the app is […] - My worst software bug ever
Let me tell you about one of the worst bugs I’ve produced (so far) in my career as a software engineer. I remember it as if it was yesterday. Back in 2012, I was working for a company that runs […] - Unit vs. Integration vs. Acceptance Test
Have you ever been part of a team meeting, and the conversation moved towards Unit Testing and writing some Integration Tests here and some Acceptance Tests there? And did you feel like you were the only person in the room […] - The Story of the Invisible Junior Developer
What framework or technology to learn next? Today, I want to share 5 rules to guide you during your first years as junior developer. - Behind the scenes of filter, map & reduce
Today, I want to show you, how you can solve coding challenges faster, with more confidence, and with less code. - How linting can set you apart from the competition
A tutorial on how to measure the complexity of your code in order to find code sections that need improvement.