Three Things I Learned This Week - 29th Feb 2020

To see why I write these, see my first post in this series.

This week:

  • Two weeks ago, Kristin Jackovny wrote about why she like Cypress. This week it was followed up by a more in-depth look at using HTTP requests in UI tests in Cypress. Whilst the article doesn’t explicitly call it out, this interestingly blurs the testing pyramid between UI and API tests - where the UI tests isn’t specifically focussed on authentication, this could save a considerable amount of time cumulatively across a suite of tests.
  • I discussed blogging with other engineers I work with, especially about the problems of idea generation, how to improve and how to know if you’re even doing it well at all. As it turns out, this isn’t an isolated problem - plenty of people share the problem of “I’d blog, but I what to talk about”. I’m lucky - my team are awesome and more than willing to help other people. We’ve got a new Slack channel for people to throw ideas and drafts at. This isn’t just a story - I was reminded that problems that seem individual are actually shared problems, and can be solved by admitting to people that you’re struggling with something.
  • Whilst discussing recent shows like Star Trek: Picard, my wife had some questions. I answered them promptly, but she challenged the answers, and rightly so. I’d made the answers up - they were all from headcanon. When I explained that they were headcanon, she challenged that concept entirely. This time, knowing I was actually right, I looked for some actual evidence, and came across this old blog post. It turns out that headcanon can be involuntary, and can live in the same box as cognitive biases.

Bonus observations:

  • My team agreed that the Logitech G533 is still the best remote working headset money can buy.