Issue #309

19 April 2022


Issue #309
Pointer.io
Tuesday 19th April's issue is presented by PostHog
 

 
PostHog is the open-source product analytics suite you can self-host. Heatmaps, Recordings, Funnels, Feature Flags and more — all in a platform you can self-host and sync with your data warehouse!
 
 
How to Freaking Find Great Developers By Having Them Read Code
#Leadership #Management #Hiring

tl;dr: Typical white-boarding interviews are suboptimal. A better method is to have "the candidate read existing code and talk about what it does and how it works." Reading code is: (1) Probably 95% of what a developer does in their job. (2) Way more efficient than writing. (3) Puts the candidates at ease compared to writing code. The author shows us how to put this is into practice. 

Motivating Developers To Care About Documentation
- Paulo André
#Leadership #Management #Documentation

tl;dr: Ask yourself why you need documentation e.g. making better decisions across the org, helping people get the right information, making onboarding more self-service. "If we’re deciding whether to write something, we should ask whether writing it will help us with one of those objectives." Paulo suggests pointing your team towards the "why" and also provides tips for maintaining the practice.

I Used To Think You Don't Need Product People. I Was Wrong
- James Hawkins
#Leadership #Management

tl;dr: James' company grew rapidly by assembling a small product team and following 6 steps, including: (1) Hiring product managers who can code, and who were "scrappy, anti-plan type folk." (2) Focus on optimizing leading indicator metrics as high up the funnel as possible, for a faster feedback loop. (3) Structuring the company for autonomy. And more. 

Promoted by PostHog.
#Agile #Management #Antipattern
 
tl;dr: "In my ongoing quest to explore the problems that are endemic to modern software development, I decided to focus in particular on estimation and the disaster that is “story pointing.”" Lloyd discusses the antipatterns experienced when estimating, including failing to realize story points are an estimate, coercing developers into choosing a lower number, discounting high or low numbers, and more.

"The most dangerous phrase in the language is, ‘We’ve always done it this way.’"

– Grace Hopper

 
#Compiler

tl;dr: "Did you know there is a type of compiler backdoor attack that is impossible to defend against? In this post I’ll show you how to implement such an attack in less than 100 lines of code."
Writing For Engineers
- Heinrich Hartmann
#CareerAdvice
 
tl;dr: "This article contains some learnings that have helped me (and others) to become better and more productive as a writer over the past 15 years. I am sharing them in the hope, that you find them useful." Heinrich covers how to prepare for the topic you want to write about, confusing writing and learning, and much more. 
Understanding Software Engineering Salaries In 2022, In 5 Charts
- Tekla Perry
#Salary

tl;dr: "Programming in Go, is the most in-demand skill; the cybersecurity talent shortage continues to intensify; and Silicon Valley companies continue to offer the highest salaries, even to their remote workers." And more.

CSS Tips
- Marko Denic
#CSS #Tips

tl;dr: "CSS tips and tricks you won’t see in most of the tutorials," such as creating the typing effect with no JS, using the drop-shadow filter function, smooth scrolling with one line of CSS and no JS. And more. 

Notable GitHub Repos
Kyverno
Kubernetes native policy management.

 
Pipedream
Connect APIs. Free for developers.

 

Fastlane
Automate building and releasing your iOS and Android apps.

 
BITB
Browser in the browser (BITB) templates.

 
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