Blog | Niko Heikkilä

In software development, there’s a lot of talk about small vs big batches. However, that talk mostly comes from the Lean methodologies perspective, which, while…

The single most important topic in functional programming is to understand what a function is. Inherently, a function is a way to map the input value of some…

I often ponder my work and where I want to head with it. Thus, it’s only logical to understand what I need to learn to get there. Moreover, the more I think of…

I’m going to admit something: I had trouble understanding test-driven development (TDD) and it took me a long time to get over it. TDD felt mysterious…

I’ve recently participated in discussions related to developer productivity. I think productivity is harmful because it can fool us into thinking high-frequency…

Recently, I had a discussion with my team regarding an always timely question: at what level should I write my automated tests: unit, integration, or end-to-end…

This post was originally published in Futurice blog. Disclaimer: similar to other ways of working, both pair and mob programming are known to elicit heated…

Few rules in designing clean code have been as crucial for me as Kent Beck’s four rules of simple design. To jog your memory, they are as follows: Well-designed…

Developer: “Hey, could you review my PR? I had this fantastic idea about X the other day, so I decided to give it a go. I think it turned out to be pretty good…

There is one thing uniting the people working in tech. Computers. Fresh from the box, many of them are happily unequipped to fulfil our grand visions and…

There are too many places to mention, but I’ll list a few here: GitHub Explore can offer you many suggested packages based on the GitHub repositories you’ve…

Don’t care about reading much, eh? Too bad, but you can also skip the content and head over to my Playwright Kickstarter repository and learn how to use it for…

The promise on DevTernity conference homepage is to turn developers into architects and engineering leaders. A bold mission, which many major players in the…

While dipping our toes with test-driven development for the first time, a significant obstacle is usually finding out how to write our first tests. Happy cases…

In the modern world struck by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity we are still pushed to estimate our work accurately. Some say estimating is…

Lately, I’ve been investing more time in Python projects. However, having worked with Node.js and TypeScript for the better part of the last few years, I…

Recently, on LinkedIn, I shared my unapologetic opinion that you’re not a professional software developer if you don’t care to write automated tests to verify…

Long Time Ago in a Software Company, Far Far Away The product management learns about a speculative need for the Feature that will help the company increase…

In software, legacy code is a code that runs in production. Don’t you love the defeatist attitude of this quote? You might have stumbled upon it on many…

Hey! An earlier revision of this post described how to survive the world of pull request workflows. However, since then, I’ve grown more convinced that…

I recently finished reading Practical Remote Pair Programming by Adrian Bolboacă. In the description, the author promises to teach you the structure…

Many software developers who have at least a couple of years of experience in this industry are often barraged with headhunting letters from recruiters…

During our careers, almost everyone has regular one-on-one meetings, sometimes referred to as performance reviews. There we take time to go through our past…

There’s a fascinating law of mathematical theory applicable to agile software development, which helps you deliver features faster without sacrificing quality…

For people doing mainly project work, planning daily tasks is a constant struggle, which can cause severe issues with productivity and mental well-being. As a…

Taking notes is a serious business. While I’m not your typical person journaling everything they see or hear, I write a lot whether it be articles…

Throughout the observed history, human motivation has adapted to demands and economies of the current age. The first establishment, Motivation 1.0, provided us…

This post might come off like a weird spiritual tip for a developer, but bear with me a minute… Santosha A word I came across in yoga that fits very aptly into…

Earlier in the summer of 2020, I made a bold decision to refresh and broaden my career from a product company to software consultancy. I was yearning to work in…

By the 2020s, every software company in existence should be using open-source code as building blocks for their products. Better than that, every company should…