The Responsible Consultant: What project information should my software/web developer provide?

November 10, 2014

Getting right to the point, many (possibly even most) software/web developers will simply hand you the deliverable upon project completion and call it a day. The tools and processes used are often held back, forcing you to always go through them for updates or eventually argue with them to get what you need. Although the […]

Define: Good Consultants

November 8, 2014

This morning, I stumbled across this blog post, describing “Good Consultants vs. Bad Consultants”.  Although it’s a little rough around the edges, the points it makes are important.

Tutorial: Spring + Hibernate + HikariCP

April 23, 2014

HikariCP is newer JDBC connection pool, but has already gained a large following.  And for good reason!  It’s lightweight, reliable, and performant. We recently added it as a core module to Hibernate ORM: hibernate-hikaricp (will be released in ORM 4.3.6 and 5.0.0).  However, I wanted to try and replace C3P0 within NeighborLink’s new web platform.  […]

Man vs. JIRA: The 3,000+ Issue Tracker Fight

January 9, 2014

What do you get from a 10+ year old open source framework, thousands and thousands of users within a wide range of roles, and tremendous complexity?  A JIRA project with over 3,000 unresolved tickets, ranging from the brand-new to a stale 8+ years.  Welcome to Hibernate ORM.

The Pros and Cons of Working From Home

January 6, 2014

It’s now been over a year and half since I started working remotely as a senior software engineer for Red Hat. A large portion of Red Hat engineering is remote and the company embraces the setup. It’s certainly my dream gig and I love the work. However, working remotely, full-time, has been simultaneously incredible and […]