Because it matters
Making things happen, making things right, because it matters.
16 deadly code smells - Part 1
Code smells that are considered fatal during coding interviews
Every programming language has one or more coding style guidelines. All developers know that but some of them don’t care. They practice bad programming habits for years without realizing the importance of the issues they caused. As one of the hiring managers at Zuhlke Hong Kong, I’ve seen a lot of code smells during coding interviews. Here are ... Read more 03 Aug 2019 by Alan Tai
Why don’t developers use TDD in practice
How to make TDD great again
Like everything that comes under the name of Agile, Test Driven Development (TDD) is something that sounds great in theory. In practice, it is unclear how to do it right. You are often told that if you don’t like it, you are doing it wrong. It comes as no surprise that most developers I’ve met could explain the benefits of using TDD while none o... Read more 11 Jul 2019 by Alan Tai
A quest to hire great software engineers
You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince
If hiring software engineers is no easy task, hiring great ones is nearly impossible. I’d rather kiss all the frogs in a pond to find the prince, if only it were that simple to hire! An average of 2% of applicants gets hired by my company, Zuhlke Hong Kong. That means there are only 2 princes in a pond living with other 98 frogs. Apparently, we... Read more 30 Jun 2019 by Alan Tai
All you need to know about CircleCI 2.0 with Firebase Test Lab
Learn how to run super fast Android tests on CircleCI 2.0 & Firebase Test Lab
Problem with CircleCI 1.0 For Android developers, the one major issue with CircleCI 1.0 is speed. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the free services offered by CircleCI. And from my experience, it is not slower than its competitors. But it is definitely slower than my personal computer. I have tried to speed up my Android builds with the help of ... Read more 05 Dec 2017 by Alan Tai
Need for speed — How to squeeze every last drop out of macOS Sierra
A macOS performance tweaking guide for hardcore Android developers
No doubt that Mac = beauty + performance, but why do we always hear developers complaining the slowness of their Macs? macOS, just like any other products, is optimized for the majority of users. We, software developers, are the minority. The tools we use, the long hours of we spend on a Mac, and the speed we need are different from the general ... Read more 02 Mar 2017 by Alan Tai