About Lane Wagner

20 rules of thumb for writing better software. Optimize for simplicity first Write code for humans, not computers Reading is more important than writing Any style is fine, as long as it’s black There should be one way to do it, but seriously this time Hide the sharp knives Changing the rules is better than adding exceptions Libraries are better...

College has been prescribed almost universally by the parents of the last ~40 years as the solution to life’s problems. We’ve been told it’s the way to land a good job and to make more money. But is it? I think that most college degrees these days commit a cardinal sin in the business world. College degrees are solutions in search of a problem....

I found this proposal for improvements to error handling in Go interesting, but still not something I’d be happy to see implemented. Allow me to clear up my thoughts on Go’s errors. Overall, I prefer how Go forces me to think about errors at every turn. When working in try/catch languages like JavaScript, I often easily forget which functions can...

The ideas behind the DevOps movements undeniably changed the software development world for the better - but by now, the term “DevOps” has lost all meaning. Sometimes an idea is so good, that you can’t argue with it. I’m not saying that the original idea behind “DevOps” was perfect - I’ve written about some of the specific issues I’ve seen. That...

Saying “no” is a hard skill to learn. It’s even harder if you tend to be a more introverted person. However, learning how to say “no” effectively can help your career. I certainly have struggled over the years with saying “no” as a programmer, after all, wouldn’t a good programmertm be able to do anything? Let’s look at some example scenarios...