Can AI out-code experienced developers?

ai vs devs

A relatively new tool from Microsoft is quietly disrupting the auto-complete industry. Here’s why you need a copilot to keep up. This video offers a brief look into using GitHub Copilot, a tool that suggests complex autocompletions based on AI analysis of a mass of “publicly available sources, including code in public repositories on GitHub” and…

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Techniques For Effective Models in C#

c# techniques

Large, complex data models are ubiquitous today.  Whether destined for a database or a service API, constructing valid data is essential.   Having a clear and concise way of defining data models, as well as populating and validating them, can greatly increase productivity and reliability.  When building models with hundreds of fields and several levels, clarity…

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Fully Type-Safe JSON in TypeScript

json typescript

There are several libraries available for validating JSON in TypeScript, but the ones that I am aware of have at least one of the following drawbacks. The type safety of TypeScript itself does not come into play until after the validation is complete. There is excessive boilerplate code, either manually created or generated. The flexibility…

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Modeling Hierarchical Data in Postgres

hierarchy data

Hierarchical data has historically been a challenge with relational databases. There are well-known solutions for implementing a hierarchy in a purely relational fashion, but their complexity and performance are not generally desirable. To overcome this, some modern RDBMSs have a special data type for hierarchical values. In the case of Postgres, this data type is…

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7 Habits of a Killer Sprint Team

devs sitting

This post was co-authored by Dave Arndt and Kevin Miles. With 40+ combined years of architecture/development experience on various Sprint teams at different companies, we have identified some key behaviors that all our most effective teams have exhibited as well as noting some (sometimes subtle) unhealthy behaviors. If you are currently on a team that…

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How is Your Data Quality

data quality

As a long-time data professional, I am pleased to see that companies have put a much greater focus on the quality of their corporate data assets in recent years. As everyone rushes to herald data as their #1 corporate asset, it is important to realize that the collection, transformation, and publication of flawed data can…

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Batch Process Best Practices

batch process

Writing production ready batch processes is not typically viewed as the glamorous side of software development. It’s often grouped with acceptance testing and documentation as tasks to be avoided during the development process. However, solid batch production code will perform well, handle disruptions well, and allow staff to enjoy their time outside of office hours.…

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