chriswoodford
Joined 15 years ago
Karma
402
Submissions
64
Member since
May 3
Recent submissions
Comment · 7 years ago
Gobble (YC W14) | Senior Full Stack Software Engineer | Toronto, ON | ONSITE
Gobble (http://gobble.com) is on a tear and we need more exceptional talent to help smash our goals for 2019. We're a full stack food company with over $30M+ in funding from A16Z, Khosla Ventures, Initialized Capital, YC, and others.
Gobble is a meal prep company that makes cooking easy for busy people. Gobble's breakout product is the 15-minute one pan dinner kit. Internally, Gobble rapidly invents, sources, manufactures and delivers custom prepped meals via a fully integrated and agile national supply chain.
We're looking to bring on product-oriented full stack engineers who are interested in making a big impact on the company. The role is ONSITE in our new Toronto office.
As a team, we value things like: TDD, being resilient to change, refactoring, and shipping code often.
Our stack is mostly: Ruby/Rails/Rspec/Postgres/React/Heroku
If you're interested in learning more, you can email me directly [email protected] with your CV/Linkedin
Comment · 8 years ago
I'll open by saying I've only ever had bad experiences with complete re-writes and these experiences have impacted my aversion to them.
"[Working Effectively with Legacy Code]" by Michael Feathers really helped me get through a situation like this.
My recommendation is not to try to understand the code per se, but understand the business that the code was being used in/by.
From there, over time, just start writing really high level end-to-end tests to represent what the business expects the codebase to do (i.e. starting at the top of the [test pyramid]). This ends up acting as your safety net (your "test harness").
Then it's less a matter of trying to understand what the code does, and becomes a question of what the code should do. You can iterate level by level into the test pyramid, documenting the code with tests and refactoring/improving the code as you go.
It's a long process (I'm about 4.5 years into it and still going strong), but it allowed us to move fast while developing new features with a by-product of continually improving the code base as we went.
[test pyramid]: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TestPyramid.html [Working Effectively with Legacy Code]: https://www.amazon.com/FEATHERS-WORK-EFFECT-LEG-CODE/dp/0131...
Comment · 8 years ago
In 2014 we did it under Management Consultant. In 2016 under Software Engineer.
Comment · 8 years ago
I learned that my mistake was crossing back into Canada and doing the renewal at the Port of Entry. Apparently you can do TN renewals directly through the Department of State, while still being in the US. That's how we did it for the appeal and everything went smoothly.
Comment · 8 years ago
In my personal experience, it did get a lot harder from 2014 to 2016. My first TN-1, in 2014, was approved very easily with no issue. Had all the standard documentation and there was no ask for additional evidence.
Renewing in 2016 didn't go as well... I was initially denied at the Port of Entry, had to get a lawyer to coordinate an appeal. That took about 30 days, but eventually was granted a 3 year TN. I worked with Peter Roberts who does AMA's here from time to time on the appeal. Actually can't recommend him enough to any Canadian's looking to work in the US!
Comment · 9 years ago
I've been advocating Upcase to Junior Rails devs for a couple years now. Has a lot of great content around improving your testing skills, refactoring, and best practices for object oriented design.
although most of the content is ruby/rails based, the concepts are widely applicable to improving your skills as a software engineer.
Comment · 9 years ago
After the <5min interview he didn't believe that I qualified for the TN-1 Visa. Even though I had been granted the initial one 2 years prior. Since the decision is solely at the discretion of the CBP agent, that's all there was to it.
Comment · 9 years ago
As someone who has worked with Peter in the past, I can say from experience that he is the real deal! Helped me and my family get back into the US after a CBP agent denied my TN-1 renewal.
Peter, here's my question for you. If Trump pulls out of or re-negotiates NAFTA, as he claimed he would do in his first 100 days... What, if anything, would that mean for TN visa holders? Would it be an instant, no questions asked, return to Canada. Or would there be some sort of transition period?
Comment · 9 years ago
> Bertrand Russell wrote an essay about this, which OP might be riffing off of
He absolutely is. I had Kingwell as a professor for an undergraduate seminar that focused on, what I imagine were, his early thoughts surrounding boredom. We read In Praise of Idleness, but also Virilio's Speed and Politics. Made for a really interesting juxtaposition.
Comment · 10 years ago
There's something to be said for the question of if one can separate the art from the artist. There's a lot of debate about it in the realm of culture theory.
That said, I've been on stage in Germany when Neo-Nazis tried to enter the venue to attend the show. The looks of legitimate distress on the attendees faces are something I won't forget. Personally, I find it really hard to separate art from artist and artist from political alignment.
Comment · 10 years ago
Very well put!
Portal's whole aesthetic plus the music really creates this inexplicable atmosphere, what I picture as if I had been tapped into the degrading mental state of Jack Torrance.
Deathspell Omega is a band that I can't get enough of. I remember listening to Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice during an overnight drive from Halifax, NS to Sydney, NS and just experiencing moments of fear or sheer terror. Something that I can't say that any other album has done for me.
The new Deathspell Omega record is brilliant. IMHO they are at the forefront of current Black Metal.
http://gobble.com [work-life integration] http://blog.chriswoodford.ca [everything] https://github.com/chriswoodford [code] https://coderwall.com/chriswoodford [code] http://hypaethralrecords.com [music]