Posts authored by Robert Rees:
Thursday, 26 May 2016
Enabling developer migration!
Robert ReesGiven a set of goals an organisation wants to achieve and a finite group of people (say, developers) that can accomplish those goals how do you assign people to objectives that makes the people assign feel happy about what they are working on and enables the organisation to achieve its goals and deliver on its commitments to other sections of the business.
Friday, 11 December 2015
Announcing the Guardian Digital Fellowship
Robert ReesFor the last two years the Guardian’s Digital Development department has recruited a cohort of developers each year to join us. They have been drawn from backgrounds that we would not normally recruit from. For 2016 the programme is getting a revamp and we’re excited to share the details.
Tuesday, 30 June 2015
Announcing the Guardian's digital networking event
Robert ReesAnnouncing a networking evening to open up the Guardian’s digital development department to encourage conversations and sharing of ideas
Friday, 29 May 2015
Maintaining an open source project at the Guardian
Robert ReesScribe is the most popular in-house open source project in the Guardian. Recently community developers have been making some major contributions to the project, confirming the value of open-source and the benefit of the Guardian of being open about our work.
Monday, 30 March 2015
The best way to learn tech is to teach it
Robert ReesYou may think you understand a topic but its not until you are having to explain it to someone who doesn’t understand your made up terminology and rules of thumb that you realise what you really know and what you just pretend to understand.
Thursday, 19 February 2015
Fullstack 2014 - conference report
Robert ReesThe Fullstack conference saw Douglas Crockford giving an overview of ES6 and his views on how to use the new features to write better JavaScript and Jamund Ferguson made abstract syntax trees exciting.
Tuesday, 20 January 2015
How does the Guardian recruit developers?
Robert ReesRecruiting people is a hard process: you need to be fair to both the candidate and the organisation. As part of making it easier for candidates who apply to be a developer at the Guardian we want to be open about our recruitment process
Monday, 29 December 2014
What is the Guardian's tech stack?
Robert ReesThe Guardian does not have a fixed tech stack, instead we allow our teams to choose the technology that solves their problems. That leads to a lot of variety in the software we use
Friday, 28 November 2014
Developing in the open
Robert ReesIn the Digital Development department we try to be as open and transparent about our development as we can be. That means developing in public repositories where anyone can see our work. What does it feel like to work this way and why do we think it matters?
Tuesday, 21 October 2014
Immutable data structures in Python
Robert ReesPython uses mutable datastructures by default but as we move to an immutable world, what options do we have for handling data differently?
Thursday, 28 August 2014
What does it mean to be a senior developer?
Robert ReesSoftware development tends to use language in a funny way; for example legacy software is not something that is lovingly passed from one generation to next but more commonly a term of abuse. Similarly a senior developer is rarely one able to claim a free TV license.
Tuesday, 24 June 2014
Creating Glassware for the Guardian
Lindsey Dew, Robert ReesThe Guardian developers discuss their experience of developing Glassware for the launch of the Google Glass UK Explorer programme. How difficult is it to develop a new application for a device on the bleeding edge?
Wednesday, 28 May 2014
Changing the Guardian's pairing test
Robert Rees, Developer ManagerPairing interviews are an invaluable way of assessing candidates and we are constantly trying to refine and improve the process
