Top all-time · #5365
Johannes Brodwall
Personal blog · johannesbrodwall.comprogrammingcareer
Johannes Brodwall writes Thinking Inside a Bigger Box, a personal blog at johannesbrodwall.com about programming and career. Since 2010, 15 different Hacker News readers have linked it 24 times, most often “Forget about Clean Code, Let’s Embrace Compassionate Code”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Johannes Brodwall's blog posts on software development topics such as database refactoring, test-driven development, and Rails and Java architecture. Links are mostly used as sources or references.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Forget about Clean Code, Let’s Embrace Compassionate Code4 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2018-06-24
- A wicked Java trick to make the JVM forget to check exceptions2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-05-21
- Why TDD makes a lot of sense for Sudoku2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-05-04
What Hacker News says?
I enjoyed the ideas on http://johannesbrodwall.com/2010/03/08/why-and-how-to-use-je... for similar reasons.
Comment linking /2010/03/08/why-and-how-to-use-jetty-in-mission-critical-production/
on “The Play Framework at LinkedIn”Submitted Why I stopped using Spring as a story · 55 points
HN discussion> - beware of premature optimization. Spend that time on defensive code, comments and tests. Optimize based on measurements, not feelings In some contexts - rapid development and prototyping especially - defensive coding is not much different than premature optimisation. I fired a developer once, because he couldn't let go of his defensiveness whereas what the project needed was a buggy, proof of concept, version. A…
Comment linking /2013/09/25/offensive-programming/
on “Learning Web Development? Skills to Make You Stand Out”Submitted Dirty Code Monday as a story · 18 points
HN discussionDid you consider using views/triggers on the database to migrate to the new API? [1]. Would still have to change all models, though static typing would make this much easier/safer. [1] http://johannesbrodwall.com/2010/10/13/database-refactoring-...
Comment linking /2010/10/13/database-refactoring-replace-table-with-view/
on “Migrating bajillions of database records at Stripe”Submitted The madness of layered architecture as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI think it was this one, but unfortunately I can't find the whole video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp4z2eK1Avw http://johannesbrodwall.com/2007/02/27/crud-rest-rails/
Comment linking /2007/02/27/crud-rest-rails/
on “Rails – The Missing Parts – Policies”Submitted Why TDD makes a lot of sense for Sudoku as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI'd take the imperfect studies listed in the article I provided over two anecdotes. However, for the scenario of using TDD with the Sudoku, where it was done with less chaos, other anecdotes are there: http://johannesbrodwall.com/2010/04/06/why-tdd-makes-a-lot-o... I say this as a person who likes Norvig more than I like TDD (I'm interested in TDD to see if it is useful for my day to day work, Norvig is more of my h…
Comment linking /2010/04/06/why-tdd-makes-a-lot-of-sense-for-sudoko/
on “The Great Benefit of Test Driven Development Nobody Talks About”Submitted Forget about Clean Code, Let’s Embrace Compassionate Code as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Forget about Clean Code, Let’s Embrace Compassionate Code as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted This dependency injection madness must end as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Forget about Clean Code as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Forget about Clean Code, Let’s Embrace Compassionate Code as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Forget about Clean Code, Let’s Embrace Compassionate Code as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bare-knuckle SOA as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Forget about Clean Code as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted How to write better code as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted A wicked Java trick to make the JVM forget to check exceptions as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted A wicked Java trick to make the JVM forget to check exceptions as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Humble Architects (2013) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Economics of Reuse as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Horizontal reuse in JavaScript and C# as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Why and how to use Jetty in mission-critical production (2010) as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
