Teams and Processes

Inheriting someone else’s code can be a nightmare, especially when the code is poorly designed and lacks documentation. In this post, Toptal Engineer Juan Pablo Scida provides a case study of how he reengineered a chat server written in Node.js, transforming its original spaghetti code into a cleanly architected and designed piece of software.

Remote jobs can be good for you, but depending on your character, they can also have some unpleasant side effects. Burnout affects people in all walks of life and in all industries, so what makes remote workers different?

Recognizing burnout symptoms early is of vital importance, and I cannot stress this enough. The deeper you sink into it, the longer it will take to recover, it’s as simple as that.

Working as a remote software development freelancer has many benefits, but setting up an effective distributed working environment can be a real challenge. In this article, Toptal Engineer Ivan Voras describes how he leverages SSH and a number of related technologies, along with the Raspberry Pi and ownCloud, to be able to work effectively from anywhere.

One of the hardest things to do in software development is to determine how long and how much it will take to deliver a new software product. Should it be so hard? The answer is not straightforward.

Docker, an open source tool, has changed the way we think about deploying applications to servers. By leveraging some amazing resource isolation features of the Linux kernel, Docker makes it possible to easily isolate server applications into containers, control resource allocation, and design simpler deployment pipelines. Moreover, Docker enables all of this without the additional overhead of full-fledged virtual machines.

Some people like the known and predictable. They freak out when their daily routine gets disrupted. But, I’ll bet if you are doing any kind of creative work like programming or design, you are not one of those people. Ordinary day-to-day office work will kill you. It will eventually strip your motivation, creativity or flare for what you do.

Google’s new cloud code platform does not appear to be taking on GitHub head on. Instead, Cloud Source Repositories (CSR) will allow users to connect to repositories hosted on GitHub or Bitbucket. However, everything is automatically synced to the Google Cloud Source Repository.

The good news is that a Google CSR can be connected to another Git repository hosted on GitHub or Bitbucket. All changes will be synchronised on both platforms, as you can set Google CSR to automatically mirror from GitHub and Bitbucket.

In this article, I will show that unit testing itself is quite easy; the real problems that complicate unit testing, and introduce expensive complexity, are a result of poorly-designed, untestable code. We will discuss what makes code hard to test, which anti-patterns and bad practices we should avoid to improve testability, and what other benefits we can achieve by writing testable code. We will see that writing testable code is not just about making testing less troublesome, but about making the code itself more robust, and easier to maintain.

We live in a time where technology has made it possible to work from anywhere, and many people have eschewed the traditional office for the chaotic din of a cafe in Bangkok or a hotel in Prague. Yet, while this trend has opened up unprecedented opportunities, it also brings with it a number of challenges, perhaps the most insidious of which is a lack of ergonomically healthy options in non-traditional workspaces.

We will see technology push its way forward and society will be the better for it. The exciting question is who will lead this wave of disruption?

Toptal has taken its place as one of the strategic partners in Facebook’s effort to connect the world. Our vision of a distributed and office-less company with developers spread all over the globe has proven to be an amazing match to Facebook’s attempts to connect people worldwide.

When entering the remote developers’ world, the biggest obstacle that managers must overcome is to change their mindset by accepting that the developer will not be in plain sight, and where they can manage and follow the work being done.

This new paradigm requires businesses to implement a number of mechanisms to track progress and avoid a redundant workload. Such mechanisms will help both manager and developer be more productive, which is in everyone’s best interest.

A business rules engine is a tool for executing business rules. Business rules are composed of facts and conditional statements. Any “if-then” statement that appears in traditional business logic qualifies as a business rule.

This article provides an overview on building a great Android application, from defining an idea to releasing an application to the store. Toptal developer Ivan Dimoski gives us a chance to learn from his experience in making Ooshies, an Android Live Wallpaper designed to give you a hug and make you feel loved each time you interact with your Android device.

Web services and their APIs abound. Unfortunately, the vast majority are difficult to use. Reasons range from poor design, to lack of documentation, to volatility, to unresolved bugs, or in some cases, all of the above.

Follow the guidance in this post to help ensure that your web API is clean, well-documented, and easy-to-use. Such APIs are truly rare and are therefore much more likely to be widely adopted and used.

As a veteran telecommuter through multiple jobs in my career, I have witnessed and experienced the many joys of being a remote worker. As for the horror stories, I have more than a few I could tell. With a bit of artistic inclination and a talent for mathematics, I also have a fascination with patterns: design patterns, architectural patterns, behavioral patterns, social patterns, weather patterns—all sorts of patterns!

When I first encountered anti-patterns, I discovered a trove of wisdom I wish I had known before I had learned the hard way. Anti-patterns are recognizable repeated patterns that contribute significantly to failure. For example, the manager that keeps interrupting the employee in order to see if the employee is getting any work done is engaging in an anti-pattern that serves to prevent the employee from getting any work done!

Based on my own experiences and experiences of friends and co-workers, I am assembling descriptions of anti-patterns related to telecommuting.