Mikael Giacomini

In my career, I’ve never seen any evidence suggesting a connection between formal degrees and being a good programmer. By “programmer,” I mean developer, engineer, or whatever term you use for people who create software. Whenever I see folks pushing this narrative—which is a thing in Spain—I am genuinely puzzled. I used to think that, as the discipline matured, a formal degree might eventually become recommendable in the distant future. But with the self-teaching possibilities introduced by LLMs, I’m incredibly skeptical. There will always be a market for exceptional courses and teachers, but I doubt universities, as we know them, will be the answer in the future.

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Great software architecture, like great design, has simplicity. If others use your architecture and think “Why would I do it any other way”, then you have achieved simplicity. Simplicity does have a lifespan as technology evolves which will eventually require a reimagining of your architecture.

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🔥🔥🔥amazing software engineering posts from the past week🔥🔥🔥 Ryan Murphy rejection means only that: rejection. Keep going. https://lnkd.in/ecfy5tBV Tiger Abrodi consistently posting TypeScript knowledge bombs https://lnkd.in/ebeapvQ9 Taha Hussain are you fueling the micromanager in your life?? https://lnkd.in/eFtrhiHN Eric Roby please keep your processes simple! your success depends on it! https://lnkd.in/epk7Q_qJ Owain Lewis principles for a delegation: I needed this 2 years ago. https://lnkd.in/eNvt564u Pramoda Vyasarao master the basics https://lnkd.in/eMKTMesj Matt Watson new, "exciting" and complex tech excites only one person: the person who uses it to build. long term success needs tech that is boring, known and comes with a talent pool. https://lnkd.in/e8aK9aQt Austin Belcak above average results require above average effort. Go the extra mile - the road is never crowded. https://lnkd.in/edWQGDPH Francis Nayan take. action. today! https://lnkd.in/ej-HbcpJ Callie Buruchara 7 principles for giving feedback. it's easy to see that Callie is leading from experience! https://lnkd.in/e9XXnDyq

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What is a TypeScript Engineer? I keep seeing this pop up in recruitment posts, which means clients are asking for it...right? Has this replaced the FullStack Engineer, which, lets be honest, meant a NodeJS developer. That was back in the good old days when it was only NodeJS. Now we have Bun, Deno, Hono and more. Or perhaps its asking for a Javascript developer...whatever that means in todays world of a thousand js frameworks and evolving ES standards. Or are they actually asking for a Java developer, because someones used Gen AI along the way and it got confused between Java and Javascript (*shudders*) Are they seriously in need of a type system engineer, thats kinda niche. It's hard enough trying to explain what you do as a job to "normal" folk as it is, without this level of obfuscation. How would you even explain this when asked "What do you do?". Do kids nowadays needs to consider themselves experts in everything inside package.json to land a job? When will the industry move beyond this fixation on specific languages? I get it, it's an important consideration, but asking for Typescript Engineers...it's not going to help you find the devs you actually need.

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I recently spent way too much time wrestling with pagination in Spring Data JPA. The issue? I mistakenly thought the first page was numbered 1, but it turns out it's actually 0. I set the page number to 1, expecting results, but got nothing. After some trial and error, I finally realized that Pageable is zero-based—page 0 is the first page. It’s a good reminder that small details can lead to big time sinks. Always read the documentation! Understanding how things work under the hood can save you hours of frustration and help avoid those common roadblocks. #SpringBoot #JPA #Pagination #Java #SpringDataJPA #DeveloperLife #TechTips #DocumentationMatters

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Do you want to learn how to help your colleagues brush up on their coding skills, or maybe give your own skills a boost? tl;dr Emily Bache and I are offering a series of four learning hours on refactoring and then on TDD, with each one followed by a session briefing for those who want to discuss techniques further or talk about how they can deliver similar content for their own teams. Often we're so busy meeting deadlines that we never find time to focus on our coding skills. And even when we do, we tend to focus on new technologies rather than the underlying bread-and-butter skills that allow us to write robust code in small steps with maximum feedback. But practices like refactoring and test driven development make a huge difference. They allow us to approach coding tasks with confidence, and they're a great target for training budgets, at only 175 EUR per session. The first set of four learning hours will focus on refactoring, and will be weekly on Tuesdays at 15:00 UTC/BST, starting Tuesday 21st May. The second set will focus on TDD, and will be weekly on Thursdays at 15:00 UTC/BST, starting Thurs 27th June. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/eVVcfPAS

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this is a really important point. Of course it's allowed! the only people I have met with that interpretation of tdd are people who have been forced into it by people who think it's the simple act of writing tests first that matters rather than the mindset that makes you realise doing otherwise is likley play. I think it's really important. When code works according to the spec we should be allowed to ship it. that doesn't mean we are finished - just hit the bare minimum standard. Then we should be allowed to invest more into it and ship it again, and again. This whole madness and obsession with tickets gets in the way of the feedback loop of determining value, shipping and exploration with the consumer of the code. The tests are the *most* important part of a codebase. I can rewrite code but I can only rewrite tests whilst the domain knowledge is clear in my mind. Tests are the source of truth for the behaviour of the system. After that point I depend on the tests to replay it to me. So refactoring and development of tests is a noble persuit that I think many teams and engineers undervalue.

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https://lnkd.in/ei3FCeZA Here is a blog post for my on-going rewrite of my Uni dissertation project. I was trying to implement an example of Type-Safe Builder Patterns https://lnkd.in/ebkEusU3

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Hej Network! Java 23 came out couple of months ago now, if you haven't had time to catch this might be helpful. As it's not a LTS like Java 21 which is growing in the market for Java code bases. Mostly the features are a refinement in this version with some new stuff also. A run down for people that want know about the key features, do your own research for all the details. ⏺️Pattern Matching Came in Java 17, allow more complex use cases with deconstructing data ⏺️Structured Concurrency Been around since Java 19, but improved stability from older versions. ⏺️Virtual Threads Again, came in Java 19 and gives better resource management better to use in high Concurrency applications ⏺️Record Patterns First came to Java in this form in 16 and allows are to extend record patterns and deconstruction of record types. Mainly improvements from version 19, 20 ad 21. New features are! ❇️Module Import Declarations  Simplified import of entire modules ❇️Markdown Documentation Comments Write JavaDoc comments using Markdown 💠Generational Z Garbage Collector (not completely a new thing, but due to its new generational mode in 23 it's a good thing. Also, Java 24 not too far away so keep an eye out for that! #Java23 #Java

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Multi-step prompt Engineering: If-else conditions made easier Example: Simplifying Multi-Step Prompt Engineering with Conditional Logic 🔄 When creating prompts, don't just say: ❌ If the text has one sentence, do <this>. ❌ If it has two sentences, do <that>. INSTEAD, prompt this: ✅ Step 1: Count the number of sentences in the text. ✅ Step 2: Based on the count, apply the appropriate condition: If there’s 1 sentence, do <this>. If there are 2 sentences, do <that>. #PromptEngineering #AI HiDevs

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𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖# 𝟭𝟮 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 blog series 💡 Really enjoyed this four part series from David Pine on the main MS devblogs site which looks at how we might apply some of the new features of C# 12 such as primary constructors and collection expressions to our codebases. 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖# 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 https://lnkd.in/eAqBaDeR 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖# 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 https://lnkd.in/eNGf82Ft 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖# 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗯𝘆 𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗮𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘁𝘆𝗽𝗲 https://lnkd.in/eat-ReJp 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗮𝘂𝗹𝘁 𝗹𝗮𝗺𝗯𝗱𝗮 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀 https://lnkd.in/eqCiUCnd Well worth a read 👍🏻

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Excited to share MultiRewardsChef—a modular smart contract suite for MasterChef, its variants, and standalone use! This open-source project allows multi-token reward distribution for staking, liquidity provision, and lending protocols.  Repo: https://lnkd.in/eacv_-vN What’s Included:  1️⃣ MasterChefRewarder: Integrates with MasterChef to provide multi-token rewards for liquidity providers. 2️⃣ ChefIncentivesRewarder: Extends ChefIncentivesController, rewarding users holding aTokens or LP tokens. 3️⃣ StandaloneRewarder: Enables direct token staking and rewards without external dependencies. 4️⃣ StandaloneRewarderModern: A modernized version of StandaloneRewarder that uses solidity 0.8 with custom errors, modern libraries like SafeERC20, Ownable2Step, and removal of SafeMath. Disclaimer: These contracts are unaudited and provided as-is—use with caution!  Let me know your thoughts or feedback. Check it out and contribute! 🙌  #DeFi #Blockchain #Crypto #SmartContracts #OpenSource

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I've been exploring the ABP Boilerplate Framework recently, and I’m really impressed with how it simplifies building modular and maintainable applications. From microservices to domain-driven design and multi-tenancy, ABP covers it all. Looking forward to using ABP in my next project and seeing how it enhances my development process! #SoftwareDevelopment #ABPFramework #TechInnovation

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Interesting article about TDD helps to write more better code, but it might take time to find the right path to have the most benefits from a TDD approach  https://lnkd.in/eFDdFqrj 

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Every couple of years I start to question my own belief in TDD. I miss just being able to smash out some code and watch it compile then discover the bugs. Discovering the bugs the old way, by using the machine, or in production😂. Then I remember very quickly TDD is an extremely safe way to evolve code and in most circumstances for software that has a long shelf life, the only way to succeed. I would be so happy for some new discovery that makes TDD old hat, “oh we do it using XYZ now.” And that new XYZ being a blend of TDD and something else AMAZING. But no, nothing has come up since 2011 when I began using and “believing in⛪️” TDD. Only better automated tests and at the API level. Testing all the small things with TDD makes ALL testing across the system faster and easier as TDD is a development tool first and testing suite after.

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Sometimes when we think about technical debt, the immediate reaction is to want to stamp it out. Fix things, upgrade everything, refactor. Now. But sometimes you have to pause and ask: will an application gain value when we refactor it? Try flipping that question around: does a badly written app have enough value that it's worth refactoring? Maybe that's the question you need to ask.

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A few months ago I was moving some large (GB) files from a server on the other side of the planet. Despite having a 300Mbit fibre connection, the download speed was terrible. I quickly realised that my issues were down to how TCP performs in the face of congestion. When you're dealing with long-distance high-bandwidth links, TCP back-off can be quite painful. So I went looking for ways to make better use of my connection. Long story short, qcp was born. It is a drop-in replacement for scp, offering similar security but better throughput on congested networks. The protocol is a hybridisation of ssh for authentication and QUIC for data transfer. I've just released version 0.2. It's still early days, but the project seems to be gathering interest.

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Still on the lookout for a new C# developer contract, although hoping that hunt could be over this week, in the meantime I've been busy working on my own idea for some saas software. Added a little bit of intelligence to my prototype and some basic functionality backed by oauth. 4 apis and one azure function built using the onion architecture pattern and TDD with an Angular 17 shell application with the packages functionality imported from a micro front end for the front end. 12 pipelines built publishing my libraries to my private nuget, just started on building out my azure infrastructure, and will be building the CI/CD pipelines for deploying my apis, function and 2 angular sites over the course of this week. I have an opportunity to get some real world usage over the course of the next 3 months that I can use to flesh out the functionality for real world use cases and data/telemetry gathering, and begin to think of considerations such as service discovery, setup Azure App Configuration and production ready what I have created such as the oauth login process and tenant signup workflows. This should give me an opportunity to flesh out the ACL within the system as well as work on the UI and start to consider containerisation and getting that into the project early on if I can. The market may be quiet at the moment but I'm staying 100% match fit. (It is the Euros :)) I could only get the gif to be accepted by stripping out the frames so apologies for the speed

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