Book summary: SQL Antipatterns

I was recently going through my notes of SQL Antipatterns and was shocked to realize how actual this book still is. I'm going to share my summary of the book. I guarantee you'll recognize at least some antipatterns in your current database design. Logical Database Design Antipatterns Jaywalking Antipattern: Storing a delimiter-separated value string in … Continue reading Book summary: SQL Antipatterns →

Looking back at three months of job searching

Whatever you call it: retrospective, post-mortem, post-partum, post-project review. Your work can be better by stopping at regular intervals and asking. "What well that we don't want to forget" What should be done differently?"Linda Rising, foreword to "Agile Retrospectives" by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen When I started looking for a job, I didn't realize … Continue reading Looking back at three months of job searching →

A framework for handling difficult conversations

Communication is one of the few skills for which the return of investment is immediate, applies to all areas of life and compounds over time.personal insight For a couple of months, difficult conversations have been a topic of great interest to me. The way I used to handle them is to go into conflict avoidance … Continue reading A framework for handling difficult conversations →

Checklist for learning Scala

https://twitter.com/ConstantinHoria/status/1351458487088406529 Learning Scala doesn't have to be painful. In a previous article, I proposed the use of a checklist to give structure to learning a new programming language. My intention with this article is to demonstrate how to use a checklist to learn scala. The checklist Mindset Personal why's for learning Scala: I've wanted to … Continue reading Checklist for learning Scala →

Checklist for learning a new programming language

Update 22/01/2020: I've applied the checklist to learning Scala and I'm updating it based on that experience. In a workshop that I recently gave, I compared learning a new programming language with learning a new natural language. Depending on your experience, learning a new programming language might be a medium difficulty task or a hard … Continue reading Checklist for learning a new programming language →

Setting up a development MacBook

I wrote a set of quick-start scripts for developers that use macOS. A Windows version of these scripts might follow soon. Setting up a “fresh” laptop for development is always painful, be it Windows, macOS, or Linux. It was the second time in the year when I was doing a fresh install of macOS on … Continue reading Setting up a development MacBook →

Maven plugins that I like

I’ve been through a couple of projects until now and I’m noticing that there are a couple of maven plugins that are useful but are not that famous. I’ll list them below, together with a small explanation of why I find them useful. Build Number Maven Plugin (org.codehaus.mojo) Sometimes you want to expose the current … Continue reading Maven plugins that I like →

Testing JPQL queries straight from Intellij

In my current project, most of the queries are written in Java Persistence Query Language (JPQL). As with any *QL (that eventually gets translated to SQL), it’s cumbersome to do the translation of the *QL to SQL and vice-versa. This translation is generally done when you’re creating a new query or trying to debug an … Continue reading Testing JPQL queries straight from Intellij →

Inspecting in-memory HSQLDB

Sometimes, for automatic testing of your Java application, you need to configure a DB connection. Most of the time the decision is to go for an in-memory database and HSQLDB is a prime candidate. Some other times, your tests will be failing and it would be great to see the DB status before the failure. … Continue reading Inspecting in-memory HSQLDB →

Excluding Hibernate entities from auto-generation

Today I had to do something completely new with Hibernate, within the scope of a unit test. I had a group of entities and wanted to exclude one of them from the schema auto-generation (hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto=create). After spending a couple of hours trying out different things and reading Stackoverflow answers, I hit jackpot with this cool … Continue reading Excluding Hibernate entities from auto-generation →