The Paradox of Freedom

Hi,

The Paradox of Freedom: The more options we have, the more anxious we become that we chose the wrong thing.

~ Mark Manson

Mark Manson is not a software developer. He is an author. His bestseller: “THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*CK”

He provides self-help for people who hate self-help books. In this paradox, he refers to life decisions. For example, many people find it hard to enter into a love relationship via Tinder. The options are so vast that with each date, you think you might have something better.

Marcus Held

Quickdraw Hero

Hi,

In the team of one of my clients, I earned the nickname “Quickdraw Hero”

(My surname “Held” translates to hero in english 😉)

Because I shoot so fast.

I gained this reputation from the team rather quickly. At that time, it was meant somewhat derogatorily.

The team was not accustomed to my pace.

They had gotten comfortable. The software has been in development for more than 10 years. And over time, substantial technical debt had accumulated. It was a creeping process.

Marcus Held

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

Hi,

“A picture is worth a thousand words.”

I heard this proverb early on, probably for the first time during my school days. It’s a wisdom that we have carried forward for a long time.

Perhaps you associate this proverb more with areas like marketing, statistics, politics, or you think, like me, of the wisdoms of our teachers back then.

Something I’ve realized repeatedly in recent years is: It’s also relevant for us in software development.

Marcus Held

Another Microservice Desaster

Hi,

Microservice Architecture

This buzzword has become a trigger for me. I have written about it often.

Earlier this year, my article Microservices are a Big Ball of Mud trended on Hacker News

The 343 comments on my article clearly show how heated this topic can be 😉 Of course, the rational view on it is different from what I presented in that article. It ALWAYS depends on the context. AppContinuum is an excellent paper offering a reflective view on the subject.

Marcus Held

A "Unit" In A Test Is Not The Class Under Test

Hi,

What is actually a “Unit” in a Unit Test?

Dumb question, you might say.

But it’s an interesting one. For many years, like most people who talk about this topic, I believed:

A unit is a class that I want to test.

And maybe you saw it that way too. And you certainly had a few problems with it.

For example, the symptoms of resulting Coupling

What happens when we write a UserServiceTest class? We have - without realizing it - established a semantic coupling between the UserService class and the UserServiceTest.

Marcus Held