Software Engineering

In this article, Toptal Freelance Developer Adam Wasserman explains what software entropy is, what causes it and how it manifests itself, and what can be done to prevent it or mitigate its effects.

Process-oriented programming is a paradigm in which the process structure and communication between processes of a system are the primary concerns. That’s the paradigm, but how does it work in real life?

While working at different stages of the software development lifecycle you often realize that software production isn’t easy. It takes consistent effort to make something great. However, it doesn’t have to come at the cost of working through nights or weekends. In this article, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Timofey Nevolin shares eight simple, yet powerful rules for effective software production.

Freelancers work flexible hours, but this convenience comes at a price: They have to manage their time better than on-site professionals. However, it also means they're free to optimize their routine and achieve exceptional efficiency. In this post, software engineer Dmitry Ryazantsev will guide you through the ins and outs of personal time management, leaving little to chance. What good are great rates if you waste hours each week?

Software is regular and predictable, so it seems paradoxical that practically every web app needs a sizable administrative area. The explanation for this paradox lies in software’s interaction with humans. While you probably can't build a fully automated system, there's a lot you can do to save time and money. In this post, Entrepreneur Jack Kinsella explains what you can do to streamline administration, thus saving valuable time and making your projects more profitable. Adminimisation is the word of the day!

Most modern programming languages, in the hopes of enhanced maintainability and reusability of code, offer some constructs that help the developer keep the definition of behavior and its implementation separate. Swift takes the idea of interfaces a step further with protocols. With protocols and protocol extensions, Swift allows developers to enforce elaborate conformity rules without compromising the expressiveness of the language. In this article, Toptal Software Engineer Alexander Gaidukov explores Swift protocols and how protocol-oriented programming can improve the maintainability and reusability of your code.

Let’s face it: Sometimes you just need to rant. Fortunately, there’s an app for that. It’s called devRant, and it’s the place for developers to vent about clients from hell, non-technical friends and family, and clueless recruiters. In this roundup, devRant Co-Founder David Fox shares his favorite collection of rants since launching. Some will make you laugh. Others will make you laugh so hard you cry. And just about all of them will make you empathize with the author.

In the realm of software development, time and date manipulation is considered by many to be a difficult task. Complicated time zone rules, leap seconds, differences in locale-specific formatting, etc., force us to immediately resort to popular time and date manipulation libraries. We often use these libraries without thinking about how exactly they work, which can lead to all sorts of obscure bugs in our software. In this article, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Punit Jajodia gives us an in-depth introduction to some concepts and best practices to avoid a few of the obvious issues related to changing the time and date in our applications.

How do you define good code? Is it 100% test coverage, or is it backwards compatibility with decade-old hardware? We may not be able to reach an end to this debate yet, but good software always seems to conform to a few certain qualities of code. In this article, Toptal Freelance Software Engineer Zachary Goldberg walks us through six simple ideas that can help you make better, more maintainable software.