Why be defensive about programming?

Avatar for Alex Minnette

Programming style is often categorised by language or architecture, but the code style also can differ a lot within the same kind of architecture. Defensive programming is derived from the notion that very few things can be trusted when running a program, and adding more checks help to improve the stability of it.

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What makes a great Tech Lead?

Rory MacDonald

If you’re a developer trying to understand what may be required to take a step up, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll discuss a few of the traits that we look for when hiring or promoting into Tech leadership roles:

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How To Build An Agile Team

Avatar for Luke Morton

There are many challenges in building an agile team. We hear about self organising teams, but how can a CTO ensure a roadmap is kept? We hear about #noestimates, but how can we plan anything without estimates? Failure is an important part of agile, but how can we accept failure in production? Communication is key, how can we encourage it?

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Continuous Feedback – Peer Review for the 21st Century

Avatar for Andrew Scott

One of the hardest things for any company to do is to foster an environment in which employees feel motivated and that they have the ability to improve, both as skilled employees and as people. For the last few years a fierce debate has emerged over the effectiveness of annual performance reviews and the merit they have in the 21st century workplace.

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Introducing our new monthly meetup: QuizBuzz!

Avatar for Scott Mason

We’ve been running internal Code Dojo sessions for a couple of years now, and last year our newest member, Andrew, suggested putting a new spin on the traditional format. We enjoyed it so much that we had to share it with the wider community so, to help celebrate our move to a swanky new office, we’ll be opening our doors to the public and launching Made’s first monthly event: QuizBuzz!

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Should Customers Pay for Bugfixes?

Avatar for Fareed Dudhia

Whether or not you agree with the basic premise of this article, I’m sure you’ll be able to agree that any software project of a reasonable size will have bugs. The way these bugs are dealt with can often become an obstacle to forming a healthy relationship with the customer, and can even impede the software development process itself. There’s many ways to approach this issue, and I’m going to start with a common one.

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One Week of Remote Working: The Good & The Bad

Avatar for Scott Mason

Released in late 2013, Remote: Office Not Required by David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried (of Basecamp, formerly 37signals) immediately struck a chord, particularly in our industry. Suddenly it had become acceptable to want to work in places other than the office!

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