Ask Experienced Devs

My current team runs weekly retrospectives using the Lean Coffee format. More and more, I find that the items people are bringing up aren't really important or could just be a question in Slack.

For example, someone recently made a topic for how we can test credit card payments. Another topic was navel gazing about how we use Jira and multiple team members asked "what's the problem you're hoping to solve?" to which the only answer was "That's not what I've seen elsewhere".

I'm beginning to think that there's something wrong with our format or prompts, in that we aren't identifying important issues for discussion. Perhaps the format is stale or there's no serious issues lingering each week?

Any advice on alternative formats, how to get better feedback, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Hello! I'm making changes to a web app that involves some aria classes, and I read the docs about how they work, but I'm not real confident in my ability to construct them into something that produces a well-usable experience for someone who's using the app. Is there a good way to get direct feedback from someone who uses a screenreader, or otherwise get some evaluation on whether what I've fumbled together is actually functioning well?

Would I have to drive there myself or could I pay an on-site tech to do it for a courtesy fee? Does it depend on the company?

I've interviewed for and been interviewed by companies large and small. We all know software engineer job interviews suck. But it's hard on the other side of the table too.

One of the better places I worked for had a lightweight process of one phone screen and a four hour on-site. The company also prepared offers before the on-site interview round.

When you finished interviewing, you got a same-day yes or no answer, and if it was yes, you had the offer in your inbox within an hour.

What interview practices have you found effective?

... And by what metric?

We have a team AMA coming up with a director. Apart from the typical "what are plans/goals for the team" type questions, what else could be useful or insightful questions?

Was just wondering what's popular nowadays, maybe I find something new and better - what kind of tools are you using to access and manage databases?

I'm personally using Dbeaver a lot but honestly it feels increasingly more buggy and unreliable as time passes, every installation and update has had (unique) issues so far and there's little support. However the ease of use and some powerful, convenient, utilities in it make it preferable to others.

I'm looking for an external monitor for both programming and gaming. Currently, I'm using a 1080p monitor, but I'm tired of turning my head between the macbook and the monitor when I have to deal with 3+ windows.

So, I think a 2K monitor would be a nice improvement for my QoL, wouldn't hurt my GPU too much compared to a 4k monitor. Any suggestion or should I scrub the idea?

Hi.

I'm a dev with 3 YOE, mostly in ML and MLOps, and more and more I'm trying to pivot into traditional software engineering. As of now I'm trying to really learn the fundamentals of backend engineering (as opposed to the bootstrapping DIY learning attitude that I had during my ML roles towards backend engineering), and I'm learning Node.JS. I'm getting familiar with the the concepts and the syntax, and so far so good. But one thing that I really lack is the imagination of what a good side-project might be.

So I ask experienced devs here, can you recommend me some good project ideas to work on, to make myself a better dev?

Hi experienced devs , I am a beginner programmer. I mostly use code completion and go-to source , and rename function and objects, code-pretty. Other features not so much. What features do you use often And what features are not that useful in an IDE and can be considered bloat? P.S.- Which is that one feature that you can't live without?( sorry for sounding like tiktok wannabe)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/4160765

I am opening a woocommerce store pretty soon and I was looking through a various drop shipping/fulfilment on demand services. One of them offers their services through an API and there is some documentation on it, and how to run a test if it works correctly on my end but no information on how to "install" it on my store.

I can send you the link to the service and their documentation page - just don't want to do it here not to doxx myself 😄

What is API and how do I use it?

Many thanks

I got this article in a reply to a different conversation, and for the most part I agree with it. Gpg is old and we have better ways. I like signing my commits, I like feeling that these commits are actually and provably mine. But I'm not married to GPG like I used to be, I'd like a better way. The problem is that git used gpg for signing. I learned about this new thing called minisign and I wanna use it with git. So how do we switch? And if we can't switch, then how do we fix GPG?

For a personal project, I’m not exactly sure how to decide between cross-platform mobile frameworks (e.g. React Native, Ionic, Flutter, etc.).

I know a lot of it is use-case based, so as an example consider a highly simplified social media with creating posts with text and photo, editing your profile, and viewing/following others. What works best here and why?

For my project, I do have a web app as well built using NextJS, and I have a decent amount of experience with React. I’ve also used Flutter in the past and found it pretty easy to work with, but I’ve never tried my other options.

As far as I’m aware, most people generally recommend staying away from Ionic? I’m not exactly sure why that is or if that’s just an old sentiment.

Thanks!

I know this is a very generalized question, as it depends on the company, product, position, etc. But in general, what sets someone apart as ready for a senior position over an intermediate or junior position? Experience I would think would be a big one, but say you have a candidate that shows problem solving abilities to solve code problems, but is newer to the tech field vs someone who's been in the field x years, does the first guy have a shot without really knowing the ins and outs of working as a software engineer, hoping to pick it up quick?

I'm a senior engineer (web full-stack) at a bank. I've been doing this for about 5 years.

When I write code, I find it similar to authoring a book or even writing a poem. I love trying to write code that reads really well, has beautifully designed boundaries between dependencies, great structure and so on. I also find that I write code with a big focus on making it a joy to work with for developers that touch it later on.

I struggle with the emphasis on collaboration and quick iteration approach in this field. "Co-authoring a book" with 6 other "authors" in two week chunks just seems crazy to me. And what I've seen that passes as shippable code is also crazy to me -- but hey, "it works".

I also have never been a guy that gets overly excited about using technology to solve problems or using software to satisfy business needs. I really just like writing code, setting up development environments or CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure or whatever...just for those things themselves. (Again it's like an art form to me. And I really really like reading other's well thought out code and appreciate for just that rather than the use-case or problem that the code is actually solving)

Anyone else out there like me? (Not arguing the merits one way or the other...just curious if I'm a weirdo)

A friend of mine has an eCommerce company of ~30 people. They're now collaborating with an Odoo Partner to implement Odoo as their ERP. He wants me to become their Odoo Developer and Maintainer in the future. He wants me to not just know how to code, but also understand the parts the business is running. From where should I start learning?

Over the years I feel brainwashed by the thoughts of others with no willpower to affirm my own beliefs.

Simply, to me blockchain/crypto is this idea of P2P communication where the intermediate technology that “handshakes” our connection isn’t essentially governed by a centralized entity. But, “handshaking” in this world costs and gas is often times used as the processing/energy to enact this exchange.

Now, for what can be exchanged, it can be quantities of an item. Or information stored within an item. Kind of like Pass by value vs. Pass by reference, in a weird way? Or cryptocurrencies vs. smart contracts?

Now, my own belief is, comparing this system with torrenting, seeding and other technologies that existed long ago and still today. What makes “blockchain/crypto” so valuable that cannot be solved with the technology invented prior to it. To me, it seems like there is extra charge and latency and thus just more negative values overall, when the final overall goal should be this idea of exchanging information without a middle man. We still need ISPs, we still need physical wires to complete the “end-to-end” connection with a peer. So isn’t everything still fundamentally centralized?

What is it actually improving? And is my way of thinking accurate? Why can’t there be a normal P2P project handling exchange of information and/or modern fiat in the same way (Something like Paypal, but transactions have no middleman)?

Edit: The only thing I recognized was the ease of transferring money in other countries. But, that was solved pretty much in the beginning. Why didn't it just stop there? And, now with US regulations, it's much harder to buy crypto and all the fees on top of it, kind of ruins a lot of the advantages the early adopters (at least for US citizens) had.

US, Georgia if it matters.

I just got laid off. Oof. Am I missing anything? I've never been laid off or fired before so it's all new to me. Just sanity checking myself.

1. Tomorrow I'm going to write down all my job responsibilities before I forget them. For updating my resume.
2. Figure out how to file for unemployment.
3. Figure out what I need for COBRA benefits.
4. Print and sign my separation agreement.
5. Ensure I have access to my paystubs.

The obvious thing being to start applying for new jobs lol.

I'm well aware this post has been asked to death on Reddit, but I couldn't find anything relevant on Lemmy so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I'm starting my first SDE job next week, and to be honest I've never really been a dev in a professional environment before. I've had an internship where the bar was very low so I did decently, and a part-time gig where I just assigned myself tickets. Either way I've never worked on a larger team or in a specific org before.

Apart from the usual like "ask questions when you're stuck", "write proper documentation", "be proactive", and "communicate well", what are some technical things I should be familiar with to make sure I'm not bogging anyone down?

More specifically, are there concepts I should know/I am expected to know of that I might not have learned in university?

Hey everyone first time fullstack noob here, novice python, JS and CSS/HTML dev in the middle of development for a Fullstack Django React Native app, the thing is I made a mess out of my modules and nodes trying to compile with 95 no module found error on the expo CLI, I started with npm and the tried yarn since it was recommended and I ended up with a sorry mess. So since the Django backend API is already running on the messy project I'm going for the new project copy paste old code approach, the front end also has components and screens that may need a few touches but the bulk is already there. I not sure about the proper order and want to make extra sure I have the appropriate folder/project creation order so the compiling and installation is as streamlined as possible as well as the creation of the venv; on the last project I had two that had hardcoded the paths for the django folder and the frontend one since I had some issues with my project finding the appropriate folder, so that's the right approach? at which time during the creation of the projects should the venv creation happen or more precisely which project should be created first with its corresponding venv, Django or React Native Expo, since as far as I understand there's an ideal order that will create and setup some specs automatically. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thanks

Edit; To clarify a bit further I had the django server up and running and getting 200s so when deciding for a frontend approach I got sold on the CSS module separation of concerns/files from my .jsx components and screens on react native and at one point I had the npm installation running smoothly with only 5 critical vulnerabilities but the 'no module found on this folder' still popped up while trying to compile so long story short I tried almost anything that came on goggling and finally I reduced the number of errors from 98 to 95 with a tutorial but while following some instructions on expo or react native documentation it mentioned that yarn was recommended over npm so I thought what the hell, why not, and now I have a broken mess on the frontend project that seems unsurmountable so I decided to start proper and make extra sure I got the correct order as well as venv paths and such.

And does it matter if they show up on applicants LinkedIn profiles or just resumes?

(I know some ATS slurp up LinkedIn profile data, but not sure how prominently it's shown.)

TLDR: I am not talking about the CCNA material (which is great for learning networking, albeit a bit too much detail for software devs), I am asking about the certificate itself, is it worth it to spend months preparing for the certificate, spending $300 on it, passing it and then putting it on your resume? Does it matter if I am open to move to DevOps positions in the future?

Background: I am a self-taught Software dev with about 4 YOE, and in order to teach myself Networking & CyberSecurity, stumbled upon this Jeremy IT Labs UT Course on CCNA. The course has been tremendously helpful in teaching me how networks actually work. It has a lot more detail than I what I needed (the ios cli, labs & configuration etc), but it has been worth it so far (I'm on day 55). However, now I am wondering if I should spend the money and effort to actually get the CCNA certificate itself. (I know 1 course is not enough to pass that certificate, I will have to spend many more hours diving into the details, memorizing things and making connections between concepts and topics)

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/466603

I have a repository on github for a project that deals with importing/processing/sending reports to clients. There is now talk of creating a similar application for a different set of users, without the import part, but multiple send parts. The existing code base already has 90% of what the new application needs (and some extra that is not needed for this new project).

Should I fork the existing project and make the new project, or should I use the 'import project' function on github to create a new project based on the old project, or use the commandline to mirror the old project into a new project, or something else?

In future, there might be more projects that build on top of one of these projects with their own customizations, so I'm looking for a good approach that I can leverage again in future.

Please advise.

What advice would you give to someone who is trying to teach themselves software development skills? I'm doing that right now, and I'm finding it easy to understand, yet difficult to implement in computer code. I want to move onto more advanced stuff, but I feel that I don't have enough experience quite yet. What skills/courses would you recommend I take? How did you get better on your coding journey? Any tips to make the process go faster? Thanks in advance!

I know other version control software exists, but does anyone use it? Why? What are the differences? All I've ever actually seen people use is git.

I'm a back-end developer who wants to play with some desktop/front-end development.

I found a C++ library and started thinking what would be the best way to wrap this library in a way so that I can create a GUI in either C# or in Typescript.

What would you recommend?

Note: I'm trying to keep the question relatively vague because I want to get some ideas to try instead of finding the solution to my specific problem. I want to learn more about how others would approach such a problem. But I can provide more details, if necessary.