Think “rubber duck development” — In a recent blog post, I expressed my reservations about using ML-based code completion support, including using LLM-based agents to write code for me. Since then, I have had conversations about if and how such agents can be used to increase the productivity of software developers. …

This book got me out of my recent reading slump :) It is a quick read and contains sensible and actionable advice. Instead of summarizing the advice (go read it!), here are few of my highlights from the book. “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” …

Over the last few weeks, I have managed to get out of my reading slump :) The first book that I read upon this exit was Smartcuts by Shane Snow. It was a interesting quick read, and I will post its highlights shortly. Next, chipping away at the pile of…

What is the execution order of various initialization methods of different components in an Android app? — Android API provides numerous methods (e.g., onCreate() and onStart()) to implement or override to perform actions at various times during the lifetime of an Android app. However, when an app contains multiple components, the order of execution of such methods of various components in the app and the Application instance…

Common anti-patterns and how to address them — For some time now, I have been closely helping folks fix flaky Android tests. Consequently, I have learned quite a bit about how they affect Dev workflow, how they increase cost, how to mitigate them, and how to eliminate them. …

This post is response to the below interaction on Twitter. Context I have used auto-complete support in IDEs like Eclipse, IntelliJ, and Visual Studio for languages such as Java, Kotlin, Python, and F#. I consider these instances of auto-complete as simple instances based on simple program analysis (i.e., a mix of…

I highly recommend this book for beginning writers and students (high school and above). The first two short parts of the book focus on aspects and techniques to improve writing. …

When I hear, “One of the key aspects of leadership is to be comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.”, I ask, “what does it mean to be comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity?” Sadly, there have been no good crisp, actionable answers :( So, here’s my take on leadership, uncertainty, and ambiguity. …

Be very careful when using concurrency with abstractions — Issue Recently, a colleague repeatedly executed an Android emulator-based test to check if the test was flaky. Out of these 100 executions, one execution had failed due to ConcurrentModificationException in the AndroidX Test library. Since we were looking for flakiness reasons in the test and environment, it was strange to see…