Getting back up

“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.” Nelson Mandela It’s been a long time since I wrote on this blog. It started off as not thinking the idea was good enough or on topic enough. I was judging myself a lot.…

Patterns build good habits

Introduction People want to improve their lives. They want to improve their code. We start new things and end up giving up on them. We start new diets and eventually stop following them. We learn new ways to do things, try them for a bit and go back to our old ways. Why do we…

you can do it written in sand

Internal Change

We all are faced with challenges from others. Everyone has expectations of what we should be. Often it is to satisfy their own needs. People want us to run faster, work harder, contribute more. Most of it focused on short term objectives, on what they can get out of today if only they could get…

photo of astronauts

The Right Stuff

I always talk about eating better to help take better care of yourself. I love reading blogs and books on these subjects. One big reason is that I’m always asking myself if I’m eating the right stuff. The latest book I’ve been reading is from biohacker Dave Asprey who has got me into putting grass-fed butter, tea…

20,000 steps away from the sea

Recently I travelled to England and Germany to speak at Agile Testing Days 2014. It was a wonderful conference and the trip gave me a chance to do a lot of walking to see a lot of sites. I was wearing my new Moto 360 which among many other things keeps tracks of how many…

Take a hike

No really, take a hike. It’s great exercise, you’re out in the fresh air and spending some time with nature. What you might not associate with hiking is software development but that’s one way I explain Test Driven Development (TDD) to people. Imagine a sole developer running full speed through the forest. You would say “Look…