Software development tips – part 1

On software development:

• Everything you create that has a name lives in a namespace. Remember this. Ensure the names you pick are unique and unambiguous within their namespace.

• If a 500 Internal Server Error HTTP response can be induced from your web app through a carefully crafted request, it needs fixing. Don’t assume anything about the incoming request.

On tools:

• Using Alfred with a well-stocked cupboard of Chrome bookmarks is a massive productivity win. Stop wasting time in Chrome’s address bar.

• Use ripgrep for search (and set grepprg=rg\ --vimgrep\ --smart-case in ~/.vimrc too).

• Use fzf for fuzzy finding, especially via the junegunn/fzf.vim Vim plugin.

• onetimesecret.com is useful for securely sharing secrets.

On effective development teams:

• Document your work coding conventions so you can refer to them in code-review. You’ll need this a lot when onboarding new starters. Octopus Energy’s open-source coding conventions have been a great recruiting tool.

More to come.