Stuart McColl

Senior Software Engineer @KainosSoftware, formerly @HeritageFundUK, @HMLandRegistry. Computer Science graduate @OpenUniversity. Views own, etc.

[Stuart McColl @itstuartmccoll]

@marksandspencer I’m having a problem redeeming a gift card - I keep receiving an ‘incorrect PIN’ message, despite it being correct. Would you be able to help?

[Stuart McColl @itstuartmccoll]

Websites that make it difficult or impossible to decline cookies are the worst. The tracking assistant layer here makes it impossible to scroll to the ‘Let me choose’ button. Let me choose @RoyalMail!

[Stuart McColl @itstuartmccoll]

@mleiphamellis Hi Matt, unfortunately not - I think I originally wrote this pre-Big Sur. Hope you manage to get it working 🤞!

[Cory House @housecor]

Simple #TypeScript tip I wish someone had told me long ago:

If you get a giant, scary error message, scroll to the end. The end of the message is typically the relevant part.

[BCS Press Office @BCSPressOffice]

"Half of all government spending on computers is dedicated to keeping old systems going"

What should UK Gov & Devolved governments do about it?

If you have views, let us know on [email protected]

https://t.co/kGSYCRBXjR

[Jack @Jack_Homan]

Microsoft Teams ringtone slowed down by 800%

[Simon Brown @simonbrown]

"But why can't we just start building something, with a view to evolving and refactoring it later?"

You can, but there are cost/time/technical debt/risk/etc trade-offs. Up front and evolutionary design are not mutually exclusive ... teams need a balance of both.

[Stuart McColl @itstuartmccoll]

Steven's book is being serialised on Substack - you can read along at https://t.co/B1yul0yVh6. (3/3)

[Stuart McColl @itstuartmccoll]

Reading @stevesi's Hardcore Software (which is fascinating) and hit upon a comment about IBM measuring developer productivity in lines of code produced. It's a reminder of how young our industry is - that something we'd consider... (1/3)

[Stuart McColl @itstuartmccoll]

a red flag now, and an obvious one, was considered best practice by an industry leader not so long ago. Blindly adopting the best practices of others doesn't guarantee success - not every best practice will stand the test of time, and some are there to be challenged. (2/3)

[Stuart McColl @itstuartmccoll]

We're hiring a Senior Software Developer on the Digital Service Design Team @HeritageFundUK. Join a fully remote team building user-centred digital services using technology including Ruby-on-Rails, Cloud Foundry and Salesforce. https://t.co/zgLLGXjEjQ

[Stuart McColl @itstuartmccoll]

@DeanGoddette Apologies for not seeing this sooner! I found whenever I saw that error that the the string I was signing didn’t match the request in some way; I think once or twice in my case I was missing a header.

[Stuart McColl @itstuartmccoll]

@OpenUniversity Hi - I received the result on Monday (it was due to be released on Tuesday).

[Stuart McColl @itstuartmccoll]

@OpenUniversity Hi, any idea on when degree offers/results will be out for Computing/IT (code Q62)? I’ve had my final module result back this week, but no degree result yet?

[Microsoft @Microsoft]

The year is 1985, and you've got lunch with Frank at noon.

Celebrating the first version of @Windows, "unique software designed for the serious PC user."

[Elie Steinbock — oss/acc @elie2222]

Been reading @RealGeneKim's The Phoenix Project and Unicorn Project recently. They're both DevOps related fiction books about a large enterprise that sells car parts.
Phoenix is the view from within IT (DevOps).
Unicorn is about the devs.

Some of the ideas I liked from Unicorn:

[Mozilla @mozilla]

The producers of The Social Dilemma brought some serious and valid concerns about the impact of social media platforms to a broad Netflix audience. BUT… 🧵

[Marco Rogers @polotek]

This is a perfect example of why we are stuck in this place. This experiment is seeking to answer a question that misses the point entirely. And it muddies the waters on getting at the real issues. This person probably thinks they're helping.