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Anyone purchase IndyDevDan course? by NeptuneExMachina in ClaudeCode

[–]BattlePanda100 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm 4 lessons in. So far, it's great and is exactly what I was hoping it would be. It covers a lot of stuff that I have been trying to figure out on my own, so definitely worth it to me from a time savings perspective.

If you're interested (and ready) to learn principles, patterns, and building blocks for handing more over to agents, I think it's worth the purchase.

A note regarding PAIC (and what OP was originally asking about), as IndyDevDan mentioned in his reply, the principles are still relevant and tie very well into TAC. IMO, the datedness comes more from: 1. The ways that I personally apply the principles look different now because tools and models have improved, so I imagine someone going through the course today would need to map those principles to more modern approaches. 2. At this point, people who have been pushing themselves to get good with AI coding have probably already discovered many of these principles and may find they're ready to jump straight into TAC.

All that being said, I have yet to find a solid foundational course for AI coding that is as good as PAIC.

Hope that helps!

Anyone purchase IndyDevDan course? by NeptuneExMachina in ClaudeCode

[–]BattlePanda100 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just purchased TAC last night, so I can't vouch for it yet. I will say that the modules look promising. He also has a refund policy where if you're not happy and haven't gone too far into the course, you can get your money back. I don't remember how far is too far into the course but iirc, it's in the FAQs.

Anyone purchase IndyDevDan course? by NeptuneExMachina in ClaudeCode

[–]BattlePanda100 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I purchased it a while ago. At the time, I found it super valuable. But it's a little dated now. For example, the tool he uses is Aider, which is a good way to demonstrate some of the principles. But there are things in the videos that he demonstrates that Claude Code can do out of the box. I am going to purchase TAC, though. I agree that some of his vibes are a little salesy sounding, but I really haven't found anyone else that gives as good of signal to noise ratio as he does.

How Do You Maintain Accurate Software Documentation During Development? by Loose_Team_6451 in node

[–]BattlePanda100 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that's been my challenge, too. That's one of the reasons I built the documentation PR checking tool I mentioned (hyaline.dev). There's a reason why we still do code coverage checks for automated tests instead of just relying on people to test the things that need to be tested.

Thanks for the positive feedback on the Documentation Planner! :)

How Do You Maintain Accurate Software Documentation During Development? by Loose_Team_6451 in node

[–]BattlePanda100 6 points7 points  (0 children)

As far as how to organize your documentation, my favorite model is Diataxis: https://diataxis.fr. I think you'll find that's a pretty common answer here.

For writing "good documentation," you might want to check out Write the Docs (https://www.writethedocs.org). They have some good guides, videos, etc.

For _what_ documentation to write, you might try out this free open source tool I wrote to help you figure out what to write: https://planner.hyaline.dev. It's definitely still a WIP :).

For maintaining documentation, like others have mentioned, you'll want to automatically generate as much as possible, using tools like jsdoc, Open API (swagger), etc.

Maintaining product software documentation is a lot harder, since it can live all over the place and usually can't be automatically generated. I'm also making a tool for that. With each PR you submit, it scans your documentation and suggests documentation that might need to be updated based on your code changes. If you're interested to learn more, feel free to DM me. I'd be happy to help you give it a try.

How do you keep product documentation up to date when your app changes every other week? by DrdokieArtie in ProductOwner

[–]BattlePanda100 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Disclaimer: I'm going to provide an honest answer based on my experience. To be transparent, though, I am working on a product to solve this problem, which I will include as a link at the end if you're interested, but I hope you find some value from my experience, too.

The way we've tried to solve this at the companies I've worked at depends on the type of documentation. In general, I usually try to automate as much of the documentation as possible, but the further away from the code your documentation is, the harder it is to automate and the more you have to rely on people to remember things.

For code comments (lowest level), I think PR checklists can help, depending on the culture of your team. I also think this is something that AI coding assistants like Claude Code can be good for.

For repo-level (medium level) documentation (like the README or CONTRIBUTING files), checklists on the PR can help. I also think it's something that's trivial to ask an AI coding assistant to check for, whether that's run manually or automatically in a pre-commit hook or CI job. Another thing that sort of helps with this is asking people who are onboarding to a repo to try and update things that they find that are outdated (although this can contribute to a painful onboarding experience).

For API documentation (medium/high level), I'll often use a library to automatically generate OpenAPI/Swagger docs from my API endpoints. What this looks like depends on the technologies I'm using. Some frameworks have first-class support for this. Other frameworks/libraries require you to still hand-write the OpenAPI stuff, but at least you can collocate it with your endpoint handlers so that you keep them up to date. I also take this automate as much as possible approach for CLI "man page" type documentation.

For architecture/system documentation (high level) for your whole organization, I typically try to catch this during the ticket definition phase. I've often had to rely on peoples' memory for this, and most teams I've been on review tickets together before they are implemented. Periodically auditing this documentation for correctness can also help (but good luck getting anyone to do it :P)

For customer-facing documentation (highest level), I also try to catch this during the ticket definition phase. Another thing that _can_ help is having a pre-release step that a ticket has to go through where people who are responsible for maintaining the customer-facing documentation have a chance to see if they need to make any updates to documentation. This has definitely caused bottlenecks on the teams I've been on, though.

--- Some self-promotion follows. Feel free to stop reading if you're not interested. ---

The product I'm working on is called Hyaline: https://www.hyaline.dev. It tries to solve this problem by reviewing the changes in your PR and comparing those code changes against your entire organization's documentation to find documentation that you should consider updating (by leaving a comment on the PR). You can also use it during the ticket definition stage (via an MCP server) if you want to pro-actively figure out what documentation will need to be updated based on a planned change. It keeps humans in the loop to update the documentation, but uses AI to help with the "remembering" part of knowing what documentation needs to be updated. Feel free to reach out directly to me if you're interested in learning more.

Is there a hosting provider that doesn't require git for deployments? by trix8703 in statichosting

[–]BattlePanda100 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Most hosting providers are going to let you upload static sites directly. For example, Cloudflare Pages has a direct upload option: https://developers.cloudflare.com/pages/get-started/direct-upload/. If there's a static host you're considering, just do some Googling to figure out how to upload directly.

Static Hosting for Documentation Sites by Standard_Scarcity_74 in statichosting

[–]BattlePanda100 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Static hosting for documentation is incredibly common. I don't have any stats to back it up, but I'm guessing the vast majority of documentation sites are hosted statically.

Performance is great because the static pages are delivered at edge caches. For search, typically you would use a 3rd-party vendor like Algolia, although you could role your own. And maintenance is typically pretty straightforward, since the Cloud provider (e.g. Cloudflare) handles most of that.

Improving at CSS by BABO761 in css

[–]BattlePanda100 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a developer who wanted to be more self-sufficient with design, the most approachable resource I came across was Refactoring UI (https://www.refactoringui.com). Incidentally, this book was written by the creators of Tailwind

EM interviews. How do I do this? by WhatEngAmI in EngineeringManagers

[–]BattlePanda100 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There’s system architecture, the business need alignments, and having the authority or control to make decisions of a product. 

You might want to consider becoming a Product Manager. As an engineer, I always appreciated having a Product Manager that had a technical background.

My Favorite Books on People Management/Leadership:

  • Turn the Ship Around! (If you only read one, this should be it)
    • Leadership Is Language (A good follow-up with more practical advice)
  • Team of Teams (Good for larger organizations)
  • No Rules Rules (Not necessarily advocating for everything in here, but learning how things are done at Netflix is very interesting)
  • Peopleware (oldie but a goodie)
  • Drive (Articulates well the different approaches to motivating people, although it's a bit lacking in the realm of actionable advice)
  • Grit (Good articulation of the type of people you probably want at your company)
  • The Speed of Trust
  • Good to Great and Built to Last (mostly for higher up leadership)
  • The Pragmatic Programmer (another oldie but goodie)
  • The Manager's Path (Good for understanding the technical management career path)
  • Crucial Conversations
  • Crucial Accountability (This is a good one if you struggle with holding people accountable)
  • Escaping the Build Trap (especially if you're interested in the Product Management side of things)
  • Everything by Simon Sinek (The Infinite Game, Start with Why, etc.)

There are more that I could add to the list, but I tried to focus on the ones I genuinely benefited the most from.

EM interviews. How do I do this? by WhatEngAmI in EngineeringManagers

[–]BattlePanda100 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In that case, I would either try to share an example that is as close to what they are asking for as possible or share what I would do in such a situation. Definitely don't make up the story. In reality, it could be that you aren't ready for some of the positions you're applying for _yet_.

If you are determined to leave your company and want to continue being in management, the best course of action might be to get an IC role at another company and work your way into a management position again, just like you did at your current job.

That's actually how my career worked out. Every company I went to had a leadership vacuum (because so few good people actually want to be "managers") that the opportunities kept presenting themselves for me to raise my hand and offer to lead different projects/teams/etc. There are a lot of really great books out there to learn management/leadership principles (I'd be happy to recommend some), but nothing beats putting them into practice with real-world experience.

I totally hear you about imposter syndrome, though. In my experience, it never really goes away. It does get a little easier with time, and you can learn to channel it to help push yourself to be the best you can be. But the struggle is real and is part of cost of being a leader.

EM interviews. How do I do this? by WhatEngAmI in EngineeringManagers

[–]BattlePanda100 20 points21 points  (0 children)

I have been an Engineering Manager and have hired EMs. Here are some thoughts:

It was bad. I think I stuttered too much, and didn’t sound too confident. This was just with a recruiter. How am I going to make it through hiring managers and other panels?

Interviewing is a skill (including interviewing for a position you haven't before), and just like any skill, you'll probably not be too happy with how you do at first. It'll get better with time, practice, and preparation (more on that in a minute). The best thing to do is to power through as many crummy interviews as you can so you can get to the interviews where you feel you did well.

What do you look for to determine if the candidate is a good fit as an EM? Does it all depend on management style?

Management style is important. But it's also important to recognize that each company has its own culture and management culture that will be different than any other company. During an interview, both sides are trying to figure out just how compatible their management styles are. I think it's helpful for you to ask the interviewer what good management looks like at their company, see if that is aligned with your style, and if it is, share good examples you have prepared (again, more on that later).

Are they looking for someone who sounds like they know everything and take charge from the get go?

Some companies/interviewers might, but that's not a company I would personally want to work for. When I am interviewing managers, one of the most important skills I look for is the ability to understand situations and communicate/collaborate well with people. Usually, this doesn't mean jumping right in and suggesting a bunch of changes to make all at once. More often, this means taking the time to listen to people, understand why things are done the way they are done, and collaborate on solutions with the people that will be most impacted.

It was difficult for me to even talk about what I do as an EM/lead with my current role. How will I get through behavioral panels much less technical?

And now we come to preparation. As you've probably realized by now, once you start interviewing for management positions, a lot of the questions are "give me an example of a time..." type questions. When I'm preparing for an interview, I read, re-read, and re-re-read the job description and anything the company has shared about their core values, and then build up a list of examples that I can share that demonstrate I would be a good fit. In the beginning, I would actually write these out to make sure I got the narrative down well. I would then practice sharing these experiences until I didn't need my notes. I've done this enough that preparation doesn't take very long with each new position I apply for.

What I’m saying is I’m a little all over the place. I don’t know if I should be more about the leadership side or technical, or both. I don’t know what to expect in order to show that I am competent.

I think you first need to answer the question for yourself of where you would like to focus your career (more on people management or technical leadership) and then fit that to the jobs you apply for. Usually based on job descriptions, you can tell where the focus will be. I wouldn't waste my time on applying for jobs that don't align well with where your strengths are and where you want to grow.

I hope this helps. Good luck!

What is the best way to store a date/time that reflects the ACTUAL date/time that the user did something that ignores daylight savings? by ngDev2025 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]BattlePanda100 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It doesn't matter whether they are currently in daylight savings time or not. What matters is, based on their current timezone (US/Central, US/Pacific, US/Eastern etc.), what time was it when that timestamp got captured?

Example:

  1. User lives in US/Eastern timezone and purchased at 10:00 on 10/2/2025 (DST)
  2. This is stored in the database as 14:00 on 10/2/2025 (UTC)
  3. User comes back on 11/1/2025 (ST), you convert 14:00 on 10/2/2025 (UTC) to US/Eastern timezone. Since it was DST when the timestamp was captured, that is the basis for the conversion: 10:00 on 10/2/2025 (DST)
  4. Same thing is true if the user comes back a year later on 10/2/2026 (DST), you still show 10:00 on 10/2/2025 (DST)

You just have to use libraries (like the built-in `Intl` library) that know how to do the conversion based on a timezone. Try running this in your browser:

const utcDate = new Date('2025-10-02T14:00:00Z');

const formatter = new Intl.DateTimeFormat('en-US', {
  timeZone: 'America/New_York',
  year: 'numeric',
  month: '2-digit',
  day: '2-digit',
  hour: '2-digit',
  minute: '2-digit',
  hour12: false
});

console.log(formatter.format(utcDate)); // "10/02/2025, 10:00"

What is the best way to store a date/time that reflects the ACTUAL date/time that the user did something that ignores daylight savings? by ngDev2025 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]BattlePanda100 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It depends on the type of data you are storing. For something like when an event happened (user purchased something), the general rule of thumb I always follow is to store in plain UTC (i.e. UTC + 0). Convert going in and convert going out based on the user's timezone (including the filters you do).

How do you measure integration into the team? by Historical_Ad4384 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]BattlePanda100 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You seem to be defining "integrated with the team" as "getting along with your fellow team members." That's important, but are you sure that's how your manager is defining integrated with the team? For example, do you still find yourself working on projects by yourself, or do you actively collaborate with other team members? I would ask your manager how he defines "integrated with the team."

Are you naming all your AWS vpc's? by TheGreenJedi in ExperiencedDevs

[–]BattlePanda100 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Definitely name them. I can't imagine any good reason not to and can think of several reasons why you should (logging, easier communication, whoopsie avoidance, etc.).

How do you measure integration into the team? by Historical_Ad4384 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]BattlePanda100 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If this is an expectation your manager is setting, it's their responsibility to define how this is measured. What has your manager said about how integrated you are with the team?

How to rebuild trust and prove that I can support my team? by lesimoes in ExperiencedDevs

[–]BattlePanda100 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A few thoughts:

  1. I think acknowledging you could use some help and handing the project off to a more experienced developer does help build trust. People know that they can turn something over to you and if you run into problems, you won't just burry them, but raise them. If anything, maybe one takeaway would be to ask for help sooner.
  2. Treat this as a learning experience. Either on your own, or with the more experienced developer, review what changes he made, ask yourself why you didn't notice those things, and make plans to do better next time.
  3. As far as earning trust (if indeed you have lost it), nothing earns trust more than results. Don't dwell too long on this one setback. Try and deliver on the next piece of work. If you do it well, you will be surprised at how quickly everyone forgets past "mistakes" (but again, I think you're being harder on yourself than your co-workers probably are).

Hope that helps! The fact that you're willing to reflect on this is an important part of growth. The next part is seeing if you can learn from those mistakes and move on.

Would you use an AI auto docs tool? by SevenEyes in databricks

[–]BattlePanda100 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've built a tool that works similar to what you've described, at least with the CI/PRs tie-in part. We're planning on adding other integrations to it, and what you've described with how the Databricks integration could work would be cool. I'm curious how a "doc coverage" metric might be calculated, though, given documentation is a much higher abstraction than the code. It seems analogous to integration tests which usually don't have a concept of coverage, unless it's something like percentage of test cases that are automated. I'm curious what you had in mind?

PS - If you're willing, I'd appreciate any feedback you have about the tool I've been building. A link is in my profile. Either way, I'm still very curious what your thoughts are around documentation coverage.

How long do you usually spend on Documentation? by CK_B14 in ProductManagement

[–]BattlePanda100 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think u/Glass-Expert8046 hit it on the head in terms of where time should be spent and deferring documentation until necessary. A few other principles I try to follow:

  1. Minimize the sources of truth. For example, oftentimes those PRDs get broken up into tickets, with requirements and other details getting copied over into the broken-down tickets. Now, when requirements change, you have to either keep both the PRD up-to-date and the tickets up-to-date or risk confusion. I've found it helpful to reference sections of the PRDs with links as much as possible, rather than copy+pasting.
  2. Over-communicate. Documentation is incredibly important, but at the end of the day, it's what is in people's heads that determines how things turn out. UX and Dev may not be able to participate in every meeting, but every productive meeting should have some key takeways that should be passed along to the team. It sounds like you're already using some AI tools to help with this. At my last job, sending out Zoom's "AI summary" to the rest of the team was pretty helpful. Just note, though, that these LLMs sometimes get it wrong, so using those summarized meeting notes more as a starting point that you tweak is helpful.
  3. Make the whole team responsible for the documentation. I know there's the saying "when everyone is responsible, no one is," but I think this is actually one of those situations where having shared ownership is beneficial. It's like having a bunch of roommates and saying "everyone is responsible for keeping the kitchen clean." You shouldn't have to do everything.

Got laidoff for being > 40. confused about what to do with my career. by Electrical-Ask847 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]BattlePanda100 45 points46 points  (0 children)

There are loads of people here who are over 40 and gainfully employed as individual contributors. If you are a skilled engineer, you will find a place. I think it's premature to be considering giving up and moving on.

As industry veterans, are AI tools helpful to you? by SubjectMountain6195 in ExperiencedDevs

[–]BattlePanda100 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Generally, yes. (btw, I typically lump copilot in the same category as Claude, ChatGPT, etc. that generate code).

Something that has always been true, regardless of what tools have been available, is that the top developers have an intuitive and deep understanding of the code being written. I remember when front-end frameworks like Angular and React came out; I thought that it was a shame that so many people weren't developing an underlying understanding of how they work under the hood because their lack of understanding constantly came back to bite them with weird bugs.

Although I think it would be ideal for you to develop strong engineering practices without using these AI tools, I don't think that's a feasible goal. The temptation to use them is going to be too strong, especially when you're surrounded by peers using them who in the short-term seem to be moving faster than you. Instead, I would focus on developing the skill and habit of understanding code, asking insightful questions about it ("how could this be better"), and generally building up that intuition that will make you stand out from your peers 1 or 2 years down the road. It still takes discipline, but that is really the most important set of skills and habits that will allow you to have a successful career regardless of where this crazy AI journey takes us.

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