The Gnar Company

11/29/2023

Our yearly Gift Subscription Sale begins today! 🎧🎁✨

Give hours and hours of happy listening to the young people in your life. A gift of Sparkle is a gift of inspiration for kids’ minds and imaginations! 1400+ original audio adventures for ages 3+. Save 20% on all gift subscriptions starting today! Find all of our gifting options here: https://bit.ly/3G9xdDA

04/20/2022

When you write a system test (or, as we prefer, a system spec) with Ruby on Rails, you're exercising the whole stack from the point of view of the user. So, naturally, you have to do things like make sure that certain elements are on the page and work as you expect when you click on them, type in them, and drag them around. Capybara works exceedingly well for this, giving you a lovely API for querying HTML.

https://bit.ly/3LKLtn5

When you write a system test (or, as we prefer, a system spec) with Ruby on Rails, you’re exercising the whole stack from the point of view of the user. So, naturally, you have to do things like make sure that certain elements are on the page and work as you expect when you click…

04/18/2022

The "build vs. buy" question is one that is challenging for many organizations, especially those who do not consider themselves software development firms. Given the increasing reliance of all businesses on being “smarter” and more efficient than its competitors, pretty much all companies today need to consider that there may be times where “building” something that provides a unique competitive advantage is better than “buying” something that lots of companies, competitors included, are using.

Check out these 10 signs your generic software may be holding you back - and consider some questions to help you decide how to move forward.

https://bit.ly/3DOdFTp

04/14/2022

Recently, we decided to brush off an old project and tune it up with some modern day Typescript know-how. In a weeks-long dice-driven fugue state, we stumbled on some Typescript features that we hadn't had a chance to use before, and we think they're neat!

https://bit.ly/3udzBEm

04/12/2022

Creating your own custom software to bring innovation to your market or to create more efficient operations can be a strong growth driver - but the buy-it vs. build-it decision is a critical one. If buying the software you need just isn’t possible, building it may make sense.

But there’s no denying that’s a challenging path, and before you build, make sure you understand the real costs to succeed over the long term, and only embark on those code-writing efforts you’re sure your business is capable of either on its own or with an experienced custom software developer.

https://bit.ly/37sU4MA

04/08/2022

The art of storytelling, highlighted in two of guiding principles:

1. “Bad decisions make good stories, but don’t forget all the good decisions that make good stories, too.”

2. “Tell a story, don’t read a script. People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.”

CIO explains: https://www.cio.com/article/304823/two-principles-for-delivering-powerful-presentations.html

04/06/2022

When we first started The Gnar Company we expected to spend a significant amount of time researching and implementing new technologies each year. What we’ve generally found is while new frameworks and stacks are constantly evolving, clients typically seek expertise and stability within a given tech ecosystem. In our 6 years of operating The Gnar we haven’t witnessed any major new frameworks/platforms get released and subsequently dominate the marketplace. If anything, we’ve seen more fragmentation, particularly in the NodeJS ecosystem.

Read on for a quick summary of the technologies our shop will focus on using in 2022: https://www.thegnar.com/blog/gnarly-technology-predictions-for-2022

03/29/2022

Software development projects can be foiled by management practices that seem sound in theory but rarely pay off when developing code. These seemingly sound practices make general business sense, but we should avoid “going all in on them” when developing software products or catastrophe may ensue.

https://bit.ly/3CjS2d2

Software development outcomes can be foiled by any number of ‘antipatterns’: management practices that seem sound in theory but rarely pay off when zealously adhered to.

03/24/2022

Gnar's Alex Jarvis says: "Recently, I decided to brush off an old project and tune it up with some modern day Typescript know-how. In my weeks-long dice-driven fugue state, I stumbled on some Typescript features that I hadn't had a chance to use before, and I think they're neat." Learn more!

https://bit.ly/3hF52Af

Recently, I decided to brush off an old project and tune it up with some modern day Typescript know-how. In my weeks-long dice-driven fugue state, I stumbled on some Typescript features that I hadn’t had a chance to use before, and I think they’re neat. A Strange Program Let’s imagine that you...

03/23/2022

Does this sound like your company?

-Customer Support call volume has increased because users are having trouble navigating your website or app.
-Marketing is frustrated be the inability to make changes to customer-facing applications quickly and easily.
-Sales is frustrated by crashing or poorly performing demos.

If you’re receiving complaints from customers and departments across the organization, it may be time to look under the proverbial hood. Pervasive complaints, problems, and frustrations might have a common root cause: fragile, buggy code that’s creating issues for your company’s proprietary software, i.e., your website, apps, and other custom software products for internal and external users.

It is very easy to miss the forest for the trees as you may not realize that the root of these disparate complaints from different users at different times could be the same: your company’s codebase. Often, code issues are the result of a sub-par development process—which in addition to all the other problems, means your engineering team is likely working harder and slower than they could be.

Telltale signs of subpar software exist, even to a relatively untrained eye. Download our white paper for "10 Signs Your Custom Software is in Trouble"—and learn what you can do to fix it!

https://bit.ly/3wxo3NQ

03/21/2022

Technical Debt, also known as design debt or code debt, is the conceptualization of the potential or definitive cost incurred from prioritizing a fast delivery over code quality. It is an important skill to be able to recognize the occurrence of technical debt and understand how it affects our application. It is equally important to evaluate our decisions when architecting and writing code in order to identify the potential for the accrual of technical debt.

What Is Technical Debt? Technical Debt, also known as design debt or code debt, is the conceptualization of the potential or definitive cost incurred from prioritizing a fast delivery over code quality. We often think about this in terms of a monetary value but cost in this case can also be represen...

03/17/2022

“It’s a fact of business life that technology vendors sometimes go out of business or sunset their products. Over the years, we’ve found a failing vendor or open-source project will exhibit telltale signs. By identifying these signs” early, you can dramatically mitigate your risk, by, for example, timely replacement of the vendor. See more from CIO

https://bit.ly/3IPNEVA

By identifying signs of a failing vendor or product, customers can conduct risk mitigation and make alternate plans.