Yegor Bugayenko's Blog

Red vs. Black

In Soviet Russia, prisoner camps were divided into two categories: red and black.In a red camp, the power belonged to the prisoners who cooperated with the administration and helped it maintain discipline.In a black one, the power was in the hands of criminals who resented the rules, in permanent confrontation with the administration.It seems that in software companies we may also categorize employees into red and black.A red employee enjoys obeying the rules and climbs up the career ladder ...

The End of Type Annotations

Type annotations are what make statically typed object-oriented languages like Java run faster and safer.Without annotations, every variable would effectively collapse to Object, forcing runtime casts.The code would work, but slower and with more runtime errors.Some type annotations may be inferred instead of being explicitly specified by a programmer.Not all though.In Java, for example, a number of hard-to-resolve challenges prevent us from inferring types of all objects.This is not a fun...

remove(42) vs. find(42).remove()

We have a list of books in the books object.How do we remove a single book from it, given that we know its ID?We can do books.removeById(42).Alternatively, we can find it with books.findById(42) and then call b.remove().Which option should we prefer, and why?The second choice is the better one.Not only because it���s more object-oriented, but also due to several practical advantages.

[image error]8 Femmes (2002) by Fran��ois OzonExtending the Deletion Behavior

What if we want to extend the deleti...

Write Unit Tests, Don���t Waste Our Money!

Automated tests help us write code faster.Unit tests immediately tell us when we break something.Integration tests calm us down, reducing the fear of shipping a failure to a user.But who are ���us���?Programmers.What about our employers?How do automated tests help them?Automated tests protect their investments.

[image error]La Femme Nikita (1990) by Luc Besson

Every change we make to a codebase costs our employer money.Whether they pay us monthly or per line of code, the bottom line is the same:...

Good Title ��� Good Bug Report

A few weeks ago, @horw released a new GitHub plugin that fixes GitHub issue titles: issue-title-ai.Once an issue is created, the plugin asks ChatGPT���or DeepSeek, or Claude���to improve its title.We���ve already integrated the plugin into objectionary/eo and a few other repositories.Works like a charm.What���s wrong with the titles the way they are, you may ask?Why do we need to ask ChatGPT to make them ���better���?Because we want every issue���either a bug report, a feature request, or ...

Stop Asking and Suggesting ��� Just Complain

Wikipedia says that Bug Driven Development (BDD) is an anti-pattern.Raja Shankar Kolluru perfectly explains why.However, Florian Rappl argues that it���s not.Ben Winding believes that it���s better than TDD.In simple words, BDD is kind of like trying to build a plane while it���s flying, based on passenger complaints.Nobody builds planes like that (well, maybe Boeing and Airbus).However, a software team that practices BDD might demonstrate higher productivity.

[image error]Ghost Dog (1999) by Jim Ja...

Stop Asking and Suggesting���Just Complain

Wikipedia says that Bug Driven Development (BDD) is an anti-pattern.Raja Shankar Kolluru perfectly explains why.However, Florian Rappl argues that it���s not.Ben Winding believes that it���s better than TDD.In simple words, BDD is kind of like trying to build a plane while it���s flying, based on passenger complaints.Nobody builds planes like that (well, maybe Boeing and Airbus).However, a software team that practices BDD might demonstrate higher productivity.

[image error]Ghost Dog (1999) by Jim Ja...

No BTW in Bug Reports

Every ticket���a bug report or a feature request���is a short-term contract.You, the reporter, hire them to make a fix or implement a feature.They, the team of developers, do it for you���provided you pay, or their motivation is intrinsic���for example, in open source.The discussion that happens along the way may help clarify the requirements of the contract.It may also help the team convince you that the bug doesn���t deserve a fix.Also, it may help them deliver the fix to you and convince...

Let the Bug Reporter Have the Last Word

Someone has submitted a bug report to your repository.You fix the bug.You close the bug report.Stop.This is wrong.You shouldn���t close it.Instead, you should ask the reporter to review your fix.Then, maybe, they will close the ticket.If they don���t, you make another fix, until they do.

[image error]Analyze This (1999) by Harold Ramis

According to Joel Spolsky, ``the only person who can close a bug is the person who opened it in the first place.������But, why?Why shouldn���t you close it, when...

We Don���t Merge into a Broken Master Branch

What do you think is the most typical reason for delays in pull request reviews?A study at Google confirms that it���s the size���the more changes, the slower the review.Another study shows that it���s the emotional tone���anger and dominance expressed in comments are linked to a lower likelihood of a pull request being merged.A more recent study finds that it���s the author���s reputation: we merge PRs faster if we know the author.All of the above is true.In our projects, though, what ofte...