Articles about Software Development

Swift: The App Tracking Transparency APIs on iOS

Feb 2, 2021 • Robert Ecker

This article explains how to use the App Tracking Transparency APIs for user tracking on iOS.

GitHub Pages and Jekyll

Jun 14, 2020 • Robert Ecker

I have recently rebuilt this website with Jekyll and it is now deployed via GitHub Pages. In this article I will tell you why I did that and show you how I did it.

The Problem With High Test Coverage

Nov 21, 2017 • Robert Ecker

Last week I attended Dan North’s workshop “Testing Faster”. Dan North is the originator of the term Behavior Driven Development (BDD). The whole workshop was amazing but there was one thing which really surprised me. Since BDD is basically another way of Test Driven Development (TDD), I would have expected...

How to Build a Twitter Bot with Python

May 24, 2017 • Robert Ecker

I have built a Twitter bot which searches Twitter for tweets about software craftsmanship and retweets them if they are interesting. In this tutorial I will tell you how you can easily build your own Twitter bot with Python and run it on a Raspberry Pi or any other Unix...

Code Reviews in Trunk Based Development

Aug 11, 2016 • Robert Ecker

A few months ago I published a blog post about my team’s transition from Git Flow to trunk based development. We have found a way to get our code into the master branch very quickly. At the same time we are always ready to release our master with confidence which...

Improving Skills with a Pet Project

Jun 6, 2016 • Robert Ecker

I bought my first Smartphone in 2011. It was an HTC Desire with Android running on it. A few weeks earlier I had started to learn Java so since Android apps can also be developed with Java I had to create an app for that great device! Now, five years...

From Git Flow to Trunk Based Development

Mar 22, 2016 • Robert Ecker

I have worked with Git Flow for a few years and it helped me a lot to structure my Git branches. However, I have encountered some problems with Git Flow, most of them coming from long-living branches. The solution to solve those problems is trunk based development! It is an...

4 Simple Tricks to Avoid Merge Conflicts

Feb 15, 2016 • Robert Ecker

Git is a great tool if you have multiple developers working on the same code base. However, there is one thing which can be very annoying if your team uses Git: Merge conflicts! Two developers have changed the same part of the code and then Git doesn’t know what to...

How to Establish Coding Guidelines in Your Team

Feb 3, 2016 • Robert Ecker

Coding guidelines help software developing teams to write consistent code which is easy to read and understand for all team members. Establishing such guidelines can be problematic if it is done wrong but it will be very beneficial for the whole team if it is done the right way. In...

The SOLID Principles of Software Design by Examples

Dec 19, 2015 • Robert Ecker

SOLID is an acronym for five principles that help software developers design maintainable and extendable classes. It stands for Single responsibility, Open-closed, Liskov substitution, Interface segregation and Dependency inversion. The acronym was first introduced by Michael Feathers and is based on Uncle Bob’s paper Design Principles and Design Patterns.

Mob Programming

Oct 20, 2015 • Robert Ecker

Mob Programming is like Pair Programming but even more amazing! Instead of two people working together you have a whole team “working at the same time, in the same space, at the same computer, on the same thing” (http://mobprogramming.org).

The Team Coder: A modern software developer

Sep 9, 2015 • Robert Ecker

Coding in a team requires more than just coding skills. A modern software developer is not only a programmer but also an architect, communicator, teacher and learner. There are many tools and practices that help developers to work effectively in a team and to create code that is maintainable and...