Do you have enough oil?

I was talking to someone who had had a project manager mention in a retrospective that he felt that the testing was slowing down the delivery. They wanted to stop “wasting time” on testing and refactoring.
When I heard this, I said “That’s a bit like going on a car journey and your passenger telling you [...]

Code should start out messy

Earlier today Antony said on Twitter:
“stop apologising if your code starts out messy… it’s how it ends up that counts…. you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs”
I replied:
“Code _should_ start out messy. Finding the right places for things is harder when they’re already neatly in the wrong place”
If you have a preconceived idea [...]

Forming good habits requires discipline

A long time ago, I went on an advanced driving session. One of the things that my instructor taught me was a mnemonic for checks that you should do before every journey. The mnemonic was POWER[1][2], which stands for:
Petrol – (or Phuel for diesel cars) check that you have enough
Oil – Check the dipstick level
Water [...]