Allen Underwood

Clean Code – Integrating with Third Party Libraries the Right Way

January 8, 2017 By Allen Underwood 25 Comments

In this episode we talk about how to insulate your application at it’s boundaries? What in the world does that even mean?! We’re not talking about those boundaries where others aren’t allowed to touch your keyboard (although that’s a real thing). No, we’re talking about making sure you make your code easier to maintain over time by coding to interfaces or wrappers for third party libraries or external APIs. Come join us on another deep dive into Clean Code, and our (polluted) thoughts on the topic. [Read more…]

Clean Code – Formatting Matters

November 29, 2016 By Allen Underwood 14 Comments

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Ever judged a book by its cover? Of course you have. Ever passed judgement on some code simply because it didn’t look pretty? There’s more to writing code than having it functional and in this episode we dive into the reasons code formatting actually matters. Who wins the newspaper format debate?! Leave us a comment and let us know! [Read more…]

Web Application Debugging Session in Google Chrome

October 23, 2016 By Allen Underwood 2 Comments

In this video, Allen tracks down a bug in a web application that AndrewK provided from our Slack community – https://www.codingblocks.net/slack
He walks through the debugging process and drops a few little tips along the way that can provide a methodical / effective approach to finding and fixing bugs.

Clean Code – Writing Meaningful Names

September 27, 2016 By Allen Underwood 85 Comments

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In this episode, we take our first dive into the book Clean Code by Robert Martin and specifically we talk about writing meaningful names for all things code related. You’ll be amazed at how following some decent rules that you can start naming things that will help you and fellow coders understand your code at a glance. [Read more…]

Caching Overview and Hardware

August 12, 2016 By Allen Underwood 7 Comments

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In this episode we give a general overview of caching, where it’s used, why it’s used, and what the differences in hardware implementations mean in terms we can understand. This will be foundational to understanding caching at a software level in an upcoming episode. There’s also something about the number 37 that may be the most important number to remember…ever… [Read more…]

Command, Repository and Mediator Design Patterns

June 2, 2016 By Allen Underwood 19 Comments

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In this episode we go back to the design pattern well that we’ve been away from for so long. We cover the Command, Repository and Mediator design patterns. It was hard for us to believe, but it’s been almost a year since our last design patterns episode!!! Come on in for fun, learning, and of course, our tips of the week. [Read more…]

How to be an Intermediate Programmer

February 27, 2016 By Allen Underwood 4 Comments

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In Episode 38, we dug into the first section of the essay by Robert Read on what it takes to be a programmer. In that episode there was a lot of great information on what to expect and what should be expected of you as a developer. In this episode, we go into the second section of that essay which gives Mr. Read’s thoughts on what it means to be an intermediate programmer. As we do, we share our thoughts on each of the various topics for intermediate programmers. [Read more…]

Our Favorite Developer Tools for 2015

January 3, 2016 By Allen Underwood 47 Comments

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We wrapped up 2015 with another favorites of episode and a chance to win a gray Coding Blocks T-Shirt just by leaving a comment on the show notes page! Tools are anything from hardware, to software or a service that we feel is integral in our daily needs as programmers. There’s a total of 20 picks in all – each of our top 5 and then a consensus top 5. We’d love to hear your thoughts on any tools you find are invaluable so please head over to the show notes and leave a comment!

For a detailed set of show notes including all the links and goodies and the chance to win the T-Shirt just click in to this episode!
[Read more…]

The Twelve-Factor App: Backing Services, Building and Releasing, Stateless Processes

October 21, 2015 By Allen Underwood 1 Comment

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We’re headed back to the Twelve-Factor app territory and this time we’re picking up with the next three chapters – backing services, building and releasing and processes. Jump in to get the shownotes and listen to the next three pieces of building a manageable and scalable twelve-factor app. [Read more…]

Javascript Promises and Beyond

August 22, 2015 By Allen Underwood 6 Comments

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In this episode we dive into Javascript Promises. If you’re used to the olden way of doing an async call with a callback, you’ll definitely want to give this episode a listen as you could improve your mental sanity 10 fold by learning how to use promises in your application!
[Read more…]

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