Software Development

The Internet is mankind's biggest repository of knowledge, information, useful (and useless: think of cat pics) digital content. Today, we will be taking a quick look at something useful and down to earth: free online programming books.

Any time you’re physically out of the office or working with someone who isn’t next to you, you’re working remotely. At Toptal, working remotely is a productive and efficient reality that we evangelize to our clients, while practicing what we preach. In this article, Toptal COO Breanden Beneschott shares great tactics in operating highly collaborative remote teams.

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?

You are what you read – and most Toptal members and blog subscribers are software developers. So what do you read? Where do professional developers get the latest information about how their peers work and think? Today, we will be taking a look at a small selection of popular developer blogs frequented by Toptal developers. We’re counting on you (our readers) to expand the list in the comment section.

Since programmers spend so much time using their favorite editor, they become extremely good at it, and are reluctant to learn to use any other. Even if offered a better editor for some specific task, the skilled programmer can get their existing editor to do the task just well enough, and therefore sees no need to learn how to use a new one. This is what compelled me to try out a number of different editors and make the transition as easy as possible; I hope my experience saves you time and effort if you find yourself in the same situation.

The popularity and usage of Scala is rapidly on the rise, as evidenced by the ever-increasing number of open positions for Scala developers. In this article, Toptal engineer Matt Hicks introduces you to the power and capabilities of the Scala language.

Python's simple, easy-to-learn syntax can mislead Python developers -- especially those who are newer to the language -- into missing some of its subtleties and underestimating the power of the language. In this article, Toptal's Martin Chikilian presents a "top 10" list of somewhat subtle, harder-to-catch mistakes that can trip up even the most advanced Python developer.

Effective interviewing and hiring is as much of an art as it is a science. Nonetheless, approaches and methodologies do exist for evaluating the more subtle dimensions of a software developer’s skills and abilities. When used collectively, these techniques yield a highly effective screening process with a proven track record of success. That process is what this post is all about.

More often than not, the software we write directly interacts with what we would label as "dirty" services. In layman's terms: services that are crucial to our Python application, but whose interactions have intended but undesired side-effects—that is, undesired in the context of an autonomous test run.