iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 23/04/2026

and so I decided to create an extension that I can put those character combinations into a menu and name it and I can just click on it and stuff happens. marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemNa...

marketplace.visualstudio.com

Command Shelf - Visual Studio Marketplace

Extension for Visual Studio Code - Save, organize, and run terminal commands from a workspace sidebar.

000

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 23/04/2026

In #vscode I found myself having problems remembering what magic combination of characters would accomplish routine tasks in each project, and each project seems to have subtle differences in those character combinations 3/x

100

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 23/04/2026

But I like #gui 's I like clicking things with my mouse and making things happen without having to type 30 some characters. 2/x

100

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 23/04/2026

I know I'm in the minority on this one but I'm not a fan of #cli 's. I don't know if it's because I started out when CLI's were the only option and I've been there done that. 1/x

100

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 05/04/2026

I built PurposeCompass after asking what should come next after achieving my goal of becoming an independent software development consultant. It helps you explore your values, strengths, what you love, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for. play.google.com/store/apps/d...

play.google.com

PurposeCompass: Find Your Why - Apps on Google Play

Discover your life purpose in 7 days. Guided exercises to find meaning & clarity

010

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Nick Tune @nick-tune.me · 20/12/2025

Claude Code has a bias for working as the lone ranger. Asking a few questions and then generating a big plan. Sometimes thats on but often not. So I built a small command to make it work in a step-by-step mode. Pretty happy with the results github.com/NTCoding/cla...

github.com

191

Reposted by Darren McLeod

.NET @dot.net · 18/12/2025

.NET 10 brings smarter, faster networking to developers—think streamlined HTTP performance, upgraded WebSockets, and cleaner security improvements that make apps feel quicker and more reliable. Dive in to the blog and see what’s new! msft.it/63320tc7xa

.net bot in a submarine racecar.
text reads: .NET 10 Networking Improvements

0113

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Particular Software @particular.net · 12/12/2025

You did microservices. But did you? Do you really have a distributed monolith instead? In this video, @DavidBoike provides a roadmap to microservices that avoid the pitfalls of coupling that slide toward the pit of distributed monoliths

particular.net

Microservices & Distributed Monoliths

🔗Transcription 00:00 David Boike All right, welcome everybody. Good morning. Welcome to the first day, the first full day of talks. My name is David Boike, and I'll be presenting Microservices and…

022

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Steve Parks @steveparks.me · 13/12/2025

This is an increasing problem that needs regulation. The big tech co’s have become so big, so powerful, but also so careless. All while we’ve trusted them with more and more of our work and lives. Which they can take away in an instant, “without recourse.”

165

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 13/12/2025

Gmail and Google Workspace emails cut off emails arbitrarily after they reach the 102kb limit. Then they make reading the full email a bad user experience. There is no way to turn this off - not even for paying Google Workspace customers. What email platforms do NOT do this?

9723

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Virtual Domain-Driven Design @virtualddd.com · 11/12/2025

Curious about alternatives to Hexagonal Architecture? Revisit our session with Thomas Pierrain & @brunoboucard.bsky.social on using a Functional Core with an Imperative Shell to protect your domain. A great live-coding demonstration. Rewatch it on our website.

buff.ly

Beyond the hexagonal architecture: Functional Core & ...

There are a few ways to split and protect your domain code from the intrusion of the technical stacks and other IT fads. After having promoted Hexagonal Architecture during all those years, we would like...

173

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 17/11/2025

I didn't like having to hold 'alt' when clicking on the preview #markdown button in #vscode to get a full tab preview of the markdown file. So I vibe coded an extension. #ui #dx #vibecode marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemNa...

020

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Nick Tune @nick-tune.me · 15/11/2025

The modernization progress illusion is an almost universal pattern I've observed over the past decade. You can make quick progress early by building new things outside the legacy or extracting pieces on the edges that have few dependencies. Quick wins, low risk. 1/4

143

Reposted by Darren McLeod

.NET @dot.net · 10/11/2025

T-Minus 1 Day .NET Conf 2025 in on its way... #VisualStudio2026 is redefining dev! Join us tomorrow at .NET Conf to explore next-gen features. Free & virtual—don’t miss this future-focused event! Read the Visual Studio Blog for more info: msft.it/63321tHgx5

.NET Conf Title Slide
text reads: .NET Conf 2025 kicks off tomorrow…
Celebrate and learn about what you can do with .NET 10 and Visual Studio 2026 at the biggest .NET virtual event November 11 - 13
Set reminders for your favorite sessions
November 11 - 13

095

Reposted by Darren McLeod

ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 10/11/2025

Good abstractions hide the irrelevant and simplify the essential. Bad abstractions hide the essential and complicate the irrelevant.

0123

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 31/10/2025

New blog post about my cognitive challenge with the Facebook Link Preview I encountered trying to help my wife promote her new online course www.darrenmcleod.com/2025/10/my-w...

darrenmcleod.com

My Wife's Cognitive Challenge

A blog about programming in Visual Studio .NET, ASP.NET, C# and related subjects.

030

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Nick Tune @nick-tune.me · 18/10/2025

Legacy-leveraged learning phase is the name I use for a pattern we've been using at PayFit in a few places recently. This pattern is controversial because it violates my most important modernization principle: respect domain boundaries. 1/4 #legacyModernization #dddDesign

Phase 1: Learn

Domain A accesses Domain B's data in the legacy directly

Phase 2: Migrate
The concept is validated, so migrate required logic to Domain B, create an interface, and migrate Domain A's dependency on the legacy to the new interface.

142

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Lutz Hühnken @huehnken.de · 14/08/2025

I'm trying to assemble the ~20 best resources (talks, articles, books) around Event-Driven Architecture: codeberg.org/lutzh/awesom... What do you think is missing? Also, if you could give it a ⭐ that would help, too 🙏 . #eventdrivenarchitecture #eda #softwarearchitecture

codeberg.org

awesome-event-driven-architecture

A curated list of resources on event-driven architecture.

0102

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Mathias Verraes @mathiasverraes.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

No, Your Domains and Bounded Contexts Don’t Map 1 on 1. It sounds clean and logical, but it’s wrong. Read about it in my latest article: verraes.net/2025/08/doma...

verraes.net

No, Your Domains and Bounded Contexts Don’t Map 1 on 1

Bounded Contexts are a design choice to suit engineering needs

02011

Reposted by Darren McLeod

David Whitney @davidwhitney.co.uk · 26/08/2025

Every service class in a piece of software I see is just a place where mid-devs hide proceedural implementation due to chronic under-design. Can't name the thing? Service! Don't know what your abstraction is? Service! Anemic, undiscoverable, procedural code every time. ManagerClass for 2010-2025.

176

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Sarah Drasner @sarahedo.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

The book Upstream by Dan Heath is worth a read (author of Switch and Made to Stick) The premise is thinking upstream to solve systemic issues to avoid “problem blindness” (when you can’t see something right in front of you because you’re so used to the problem) I love systems thinking.

1564

Reposted by Darren McLeod

John Cutler @johncutle.fish · 21/08/2025

Do This. Not This. Or ... Day 5/30 sharing my favorite doodles and drawings.

34714

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Jason Gorman @jasongorman.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

"The problem with OOP is <complete misunderstanding of OOP>"

6293

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Mathias Verraes @mathiasverraes.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

There are only two hard problems in distributed systems: 2. Exactly-once delivery 1. Guaranteed order of messages 2. Exactly-once delivery

23010

Reposted by Darren McLeod

.NET @dot.net · 13/08/2025

TODAY at 10AM PT! 〰️ .NET AI Community Standup 〰️ Today, we explore how to take AI workloads traditionally built in Python and turbocharge them using #dotNET. Join us. 🎥 msft.it/63325s3r9z

spot art.
Photo of presenter(s).
text reads: .NET AI Community Standup: ⚡Blazing-Fast AI Inference on a Budget

052

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Jason Gorman @jasongorman.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

I talk to teams about the "self-fulfilling prophecies" of Test-Driven Development, but there's one that's implied but I don't know if I've seen it explicitly stated before. If we're only writing code needed to pass our tests, then *all* of our code will be in the call stack of the tests (1/)

2113

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Jessica Kerr @jessitron.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

Putting all your controllers in one directory and your views in another Is like putting the cortisone and hemorrhoid cream in the drawer with toothpaste because they're all tubes.

119936

Reposted by Darren McLeod

The New Stack @thenewstack.io · 06/08/2025

Vibe coding promises easy AI-generated software but creates massive shadow IT risks for enterprises. Learn why this trend threatens security, compliance and scale.

bit.ly

Vibe Coding: The Shadow IT Problem No One Saw Coming

Vibe coding promises easy AI-generated software but creates massive shadow IT risks for enterprises. Learn why this trend threatens security, compliance and scale.

053

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 03/08/2025

What is a book you learned a lot from related to software engineering? (Aka one you'd recommend)

35658

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 01/08/2025

An educated guess is this is a migration gone terribly wrong… again, thanks to assuming they can do a sloppy migration with long downtime. The way you do migrations well is planning for zero downtime. Or the very least have a robust rollback plan. More: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/migrations

newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com

Migrations Done Well

A guide for executing migrations well, at both small and large scales.

4311

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 31/07/2025

In the #MWNN you are free to choose whichever processes you feel will help your team succeed. Like Tuco does to assemble his perfect gun. To me this extremely light weight methodology, best fits the agile manifesto's number one value "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools". 7/7

Tuco assembles his perfect gun from multiple other guns.

000

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 29/07/2025

I find this about as useful as medieval monks arguing about how many angels can do the Mambo No.5 on the head of a pin. 6/n

100

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 29/07/2025

With the #MWNN there is no need for sprints and sprint planning where you try to guess how many stickies you can do in the sprint, and flagellate yourselves if you don't complete your guessed number of stickies or oddly even if you complete more stickies than you guessed. 5/n

100

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 28/07/2025

This way work is never stalled waiting for a sticky to be completely defined and ready to begin being worked on. That's it. You just do the work in the usual Kanban way respecting WIP limits of all the columns. 4/n

100

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 27/07/2025

The #MWNN is simple. You add a column on the Kanban board that is a prioritized list of work that is ready to start work on next. But the trick is that the column has a reverse WIP limit, where you make sure the number of stickies in the column never falls below the reverse WIP limit number. 3/n

100

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 27/07/2025

which the kanban.university guide says can be used with any methodology and is not a methodology in itself. So I call it the Methodology with No Name(#MWNN), like Sirgio Leone's character the Man with No Name. 2/n

100

Darren McLeod @darrenmcleod.com · 26/07/2025

There is a software development methodology that uses a Kanban board, but it isn’t called Kanban because Kanban isn’t a methodology(kanban.university/kanban-guide/). It’s just a method, a board with columns and stickies to track work, www.darrenmcleod.com/2025/07/kanb... 1/n

darrenmcleod.com

Kanban and the Methodology With No Name

A blog about programming in Visual Studio .NET, ASP.NET, C# and related subjects.

110

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

Published: Why do Teams not practice Continuous Integration? Everyone in the IT industry agrees that Continuous Integration is a required practice to realise quality and stability. Yet, few teams have truly implemented Continuous Integration. Why is that? thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

Why do Teams not practice Continuous Integration?

4189

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Trunk-Based Thierry (they/them) @tdpauw.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Published an update to: On the Benefits of Trunk-based development Added the missing: - enables incremental software engineering skills - encourages refactoring - this has worked for regulated industries and large IT systems thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

thinkinglabs.io

063

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 21/07/2025

The BI article: www.businessinsider.com/amazon-engin... The full podcast: newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/what-is-a-... Parts I thought were more interesting: - Why Amazon moved to microservices - The Principal Engineering community at Amazon - Why it's SO hard to get promoted to Principal

businessinsider.com

Former Amazon principal engineer says he spent '1-4 hours' reading daily — and it's part of the company's 'secret sauce'

Steve Huynh was a principal engineer at Amazon. He praised its culture of writing and reading 6-page memos, a practice that began under Jeff Bezos.

0112

Reposted by Darren McLeod

ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 08/07/2025

TIL. Also, why it’s important for your UI to have affordances (like tooltips on hover) that teach users about non-obvious UX features.

1122

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Dr Milan Milanović @milanmilanovic.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝗲 𝘁𝘄𝗶𝗰𝗲? First, when 𝗳𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗽 drags performance into the basement, then again when the “temporary” fixes you shipped turn into fresh debt. 🧵

163

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Tom Oram @tomoram.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

I extracted two sub packages out of a larger one today. I only did it to improve code organisation, however, it had a very positive effect on the overall design because the new boundaries made it much clearer where things weren’t quite right.

043

Reposted by Darren McLeod

Kenny (Baas) Schwegler @kenny.weave-it.org · 26/06/2025

When teams truly own their domain and design architecture through Domain-Driven Design, combined with Team Topologies and solid Continuous Delivery/DevOps practices, Product Owners get to do so much more actual product management.

164