VDubinator Coder

Recently I've been thinking a bit about long-lived branches and the affects they have both on the software and the value they bring to the company. I've read a number of great articles about long-lived branches (such as this one) that do a great job explaining the reasons against them. I've also read a few in favor of long-lived branches the do a good job explaining the perceived benefits of this practice. One thing I think these articles fail to mention is the impact long-lived branches have on business value. Not only are long-lived branches inventory and shipping to the customer, they're depreciating. They're sitting on the shelf depreciating. One day, when you want to add it to the rest of the software, there will be a lot of work integrating it back in. Or you might spend a lot of time keeping that branch in sync. The main argument I hear for long-lived branches is that it reduces the complexity of the code. Instead of implementing a feature flag which wou

I recently joined the Software Lead Weekly newsletter and have really enjoyed the weekly sampling of software leadership articles. I've learned a few things and have had a few good discussions with my coworkers. I highly recommend signing up for it if you're a leader in the software industry or wanting to become one. Recently my company decided to forgo giving the title of "Technical Lead" to developers on each team preferring to let the team organize itself and people to fill the roles that need to be filled. I was a tech lead and basically still am, but I didn't mind seeing that formality go away. It didn't come with any increase in pay or official promotion and didn't really mean too much. Some teams did rely on their tech lead quite a bit sometimes to the point that they became bottlenecks which caused issues if they ever took time off. Other tech leads deferred to their team in an effort to help them grow. A Thought... One aspect of this ch

Entrepreneurs - The Coveted Way Entrepreneurs are the super-stars of the business world. Everyone wants to be "the guy" with the next big idea. Everyone wants to be the next Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates. It seems so glamorous to be the brains behind a revolutionary product. I have no doubt that it could be that way. I'm sure it's exhilarating to have an idea, carefully feed it and grow it, see it implemented, and ultimately see money coming in because of it. I've heard it's amazing to hit revenue milestones and other growth milestones and know that you played a part in it. Your baby is making you more money than you thought possible. That does sound very rewarding. But not everyone has that opportunity. Not everyone has ideas like Facebook, Nike, or Microsoft. Even people that do have some potentially revolutionary ideas often encounter too many roadblocks to ever make it to market. Be it funding or forming a team or simply the time, the skills, or the me

So, I'm starting a blog. I've had a blog or two in the past, but none of the posts ever went anywhere. In fact, I made this very blog a few years ago, prepared one post, but never got around to publishing it. I've recently decided that I should try to start a blog again as a place to share my thoughts about anything related to Software Development and Leadership. That's not to say I know anything about either of those, but it is what I do for a living and I occasionally have an idea or two to share about them. I'm not sure if this blog will go anywhere. I hope to get on some sort of cadence for writing posts so that it becomes easier. I also hope this outlet helps me organize my thoughts and improve my communication skills. I hope that some of my thoughts are valuable to the development and software communities, but that remains to be seen. I've got a few topics lined up that I hope to finalize and publish in the coming weeks. I can't promise great quali