Smash the Bug

Your host: Joseph Maxwell, Founder and CEO of SwiftOtter, Inc. Special Guest: James Cowie, Solutions Architect at Inviqa This is one of those long-awaited episodes that we were finally able to record and we're so happy it finally happened! It was an honor to chat with James Cowie. Listen in to this episode to hear James' recommendations for getting the most out of your code reviews, how to stay fresh with the knowledge you have siloed, as well as his suggestions for being a successful developer! Thinking like a 5 year old child can benefit us all Show Notes 0:00 Intro 1:40 An average day for James as a Solutions Architect 2:35 A little about the organization within Inviqa 3:46 Code reviews 5:00 What James learned from one of his first memorable code reviews as a developer 5:59 Code reviews should be more than just a critique 9:13 James' tips for submitting the best possible code reviews 13:22 BDD and Behat 16:58 Code previews before implementation- think like an architect 18:07 How to be sure the knowledge you gain isn't siloed 22:29 Getting ahead of problems that happen 12 months down the road 26:00 James' "What If" game to future proof solutions 28:44 The importance of building strong partnerships 29:30 James' suggestion for being a better developer 31:41 Outro Connect with James: LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter https://swiftotter.com https://twitter.com/Swift_Otter https://www.facebook.com/SwiftOtterInc Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to brandym@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. You can join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

Your host: Joseph Maxwell, Founder and CEO of SwiftOtter, Inc. Special Guest: Talesh Seeparsan, eCommerce Security Consultant and Strategist Security is one of those topics like taxes where we have to just do it. Talking to someone like Talesh Seeparsan about security on our Magento sites, however, totally changes the game! We say this every time, but this might be one of our favorite episodes to date! Talesh gives us some insight into some of the biggest hacks he has encountered, and some tips on how to prevent security breaches. Show Notes 0:00 Show Intro 1:46 Some of the big names in eCommerce Security 3:50 A typical day for Talesh 4:59 Some common examples of poorly-written code 6:23 The cost of a bug like a security breach 9:06 Quantifying an average breach 12:01 "The mind of an attacker" 14:37 The importance of keeping your extensions up to date 18:20 Humans tend to be the biggest security risk 19:51 Writing regular expressions with security in mind 22:41 Magecart attack 24:51 A security breach due to a reused password 27:56 The value in whitelisting specific IPs 29:56 Outro Connect with Talesh: LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter https://swiftotter.com https://twitter.com/Swift_Otter https://www.facebook.com/SwiftOtterInc Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to brandym@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. You can join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

Junior developers are a category of people we haven't explored much on this podcast yet. In this episode of Smash the Bug, we're changing that and talking with Alice Dean, a developer with Fisheye. The hunger and tenacity of junior developers is unmatched, and should not be overlooked when it comes to those we can learn from! Alice gives us some insight into what her day-to-day is like, and talks about a couple bugs she has smashed recently. Show Notes 0:00 Intro 2:29 An average day for Alice 5:43 Making the jump from Technical Account Manager to Developer 7:10 Getting the first Magento certification 10:09 A recent invoicing bug 15:00 Recounting the troubleshooting steps that Alice took 16:09 The one line fix Alice used for this challenge 17:36 Using integration tests for troubleshooting 19:50 A custom product alert module issue with 2.4.4 23:29 When the error logs aren't consistently providing helpful information 26:14 How to get Xdebug working on the CLI 29:37 Alice's advice for others getting started as a developer 32:18 Outro   Connect with Alice: LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter https://swiftotter.com https://twitter.com/Swift_Otter https://www.facebook.com/SwiftOtterInc Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to brandym@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. You can join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

This episode of Smash the Bug is part 2 of the conversation with Joseph and Igor Miniailo! It was such a sip from the firehose that it needed to be split into two parts! In this part, Igor delves further into the backstories and complexities behind the scenes when it comes to modularity, and coupling and cohesion. There are even already plans for a future episode to explore other related aspects! Show Notes 0:00 Show Intro 0:59 Modularity and related rules 3:09 Magento 1 to Magento 2, and the differences in the dependencies 5:36 “Honest dependencies” and not hiding the external dependencies 6:47 Cyclomatic complexity 9:30 The C.R.A.P. Metric 12:14 Back to modularity, coupling and cohesion 15:30 Eric Evans' Big Blue Book, and domain-driven designs 17:12 Most modules have a dependency on the catalog, and the related challenges 20:28 Sometimes the seemingly simple questions have a lot more complexities behind the scenes, and take a lot of information before you can answer them. 24:49 The other aspects to explore to fully answer the modularity question, including MSI and coarse grain/fine grain API; the making of a future episode of Smash the Bug! 29:09 Outro   Connect with Igor: LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter https://swiftotter.com https://twitter.com/Swift_Otter https://www.facebook.com/SwiftOtterInc Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to brandym@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. You can join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

Imposter Syndrome and burnout; two very common feelings that most, if not all of us can relate to at some point. SwiftOtter's own Łukasz Bajsarowicz joined us from Croatia for this really important talk. Łukasz shared his experience of getting into the IT world, and some of the personal challenges he has faced along this journey. Prioritizing our own mental health is easy to forget, but so incredibly important to do. Thank you, Łukasz, for your vulnerability in sharing these stories; we hope everyone takes these lessons to heart, and remembers to take time to check in on themselves, as well as their colleagues from time to time. Show Notes 0:00 Show Intro 1:40 Łukasz's journey into IT– turning a passion into a career 3:36 Sometimes it's worth taking a chance on a career change because others may see your potential even more than you do 4:51 When furthering your education leads to new opportunities, and Imposter Syndrome 9:41 Unrealistic expectations can cause burnout in teams 11:30 How a positive company culture (and remote work) can completely change your team's experience and mental health 13:20 Trying to make changes out of frustration instead of passion 18:12 How a sabbatical can put things into perspective 20:04 The importance of addressing mental health and how it can affect both your personal and professional life. Sometimes stepping away for a bit is the best thing you can do. 24:44 You have to remember to give yourself permission to address your burnout and get help. Leaders and other team members should also be aware and check in with their colleagues and help them take care of themselves 29:54 Imposter Syndrome can present itself in many contexts. Listening to the trustworthy external voices that remind you of your value can be very beneficial in working through Imposter Syndrome. 35:43 Sick leave is not just for lazy people. If you need to take some time off, you should utilize the time that is given. Connect with Łukasz: LinkedIn Twitter  Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter https://swiftotter.com https://twitter.com/Swift_Otter https://www.facebook.com/SwiftOtterInc Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to brandym@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to swiftotter.com/slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

We've had some great talks in the past about Hyvä and its capabilities (listen to The Hyvä Revolution episode with Willem Wigman), but in this episode Alexander Galdin, Frontend Developer with ITdelight joined us to talk about actually customizing Hyvä for merchants! His in the trenches, boots on the ground perspective was really great to hear! This was an enlightening discussion with Alex, and we hope you learn as much about working with Hyvä as we did!   Show Notes 0:00 Show Intro 1:17 Life as a frontend developer 2:18 Hyvä with a single Magento instance and multiple stores 5:04 Understanding the basics of using Hyvä 8:15 Strategies for having multiple stores 11:15 There are pros and cons to any feature, and there are usually reasons for the design trade-offs 14:10 Alpine.js, and some of the challenges 19:17 Strategies Alex has figured out for overcoming some of the design trade-offs 23:59 How to handle upgrades to to the modules 26:26 Alex's advice for frontend developers, and the importance of expanding your social networking circle 27:40 The courage of those in Ukraine, and what we can learn from them   Connect with Alexander: LinkedIn Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter https://swiftotter.com https://twitter.com/Swift_Otter https://www.facebook.com/SwiftOtterInc   Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to brandy@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to swiftotter.com/slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

What an incredible privilege it was to speak with Igor Miniailo for the return of Smash The Bug! He has looked at Adobe Commerce from more angles than most of us can even imagine, so it was a tremendous honor to hear about some of the bugs Igor and his team have encountered and smashed recently! In part one of this discussion, Igor and Joseph share similar experiences on the challenges of replicating issues in order to fix them. Show Notes 0:00 Show Intro   1:28 Who is Igor Miniailo? A day in the life of the Chief Architect for Adobe Commerce   2:52 Scaling up to 300,000 orders per hour from 1,800 just a couple years ago for one merchant. Identifying and correcting bottlenecks on the database.   5:53 Temporary tables for search functionality. When designing the commerce search functionality, they decided to make it agnostic to the possible search options.   12:41 When you don't know the full conditions where the bug is present, it can be challenging to replicate the issue and then fix it. Joseph shares a similar recent challenge; some problems can take so long to get to the solution, and the solution turns out to be easier than expected.   18:39 Modularity. 'Why' is more important than 'how' in many situations– sometimes the solution doesn't seem like the best option, but there is usually a good reason behind these decisions.   22:46 Making it community contribution-based, and the benefit and success of doing so.   Connect with Igor: LinkedIn Twitter   Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter https://swiftotter.com https://twitter.com/Swift_Otter https://www.facebook.com/SwiftOtterInc   Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to brandy@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. You can join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!

Your host: Joseph Maxwell, Founder and CEO of SwiftOtter, Inc. Another informative episode of Smash the Bug with Joseph and his guest, Jesse Maxwell, who also happens to be his brother. There is a lot to catch up on as they discuss the latest news and how that impacts developers. They also jump into real-life challenges they face as an agency at SwiftOtter and how they dealt with them. Communication is more important than you might think especially working with clients.  0:00 Show starts. 0:34   Recent release of Chrome 100.  1:30 Headworks. Vendor for modules has changed the way they are releasing or restricting their Composer repository.  5:54 Events are happening again. Magento UK, etc.  7:20 New Magento upgrade—should you do it? Magento 2.4.4 will be supported until November 2023.  8:30 Joseph discussed a challenge they faced in their agency. A client's products disappeared off the site. Their first course was to run the re indexer but it happened again. So they did it again. They finally drilled down to what it was.  14:46 The fix: dependency injection! 16:18 Jesse was working on an app and had a pesky issue (losing data). The fix ended up taking less than 15 minutes. A co-worker suggested it. Sometimes, it's good to do the obvious.  20:15 Occam's Razor 21:44 Communication. It's a really important area. Internal conversation facilitates good merchant relationships. Communication is the foundation to the work we do. 24:25 Action oriented communication: making clear the purpose of the communication.  26:16 How to drill down and be specific. Ping only the necessary people in comments. Ask questions too. 30:56 An important point is how you layout your communication.  33:44 After you've written high quality communication, take a moment and re-read it. Put yourself in the recipient's shoes.  Connect with: Jesse Maxwell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bassplayer7/ Joseph Maxwell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxwelljoseph/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/swiftotter_joe This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

Your host: Joseph Maxwell, Founder and CEO of SwiftOtter, Inc. We're going to talk with Yarik Voronyi (Engineering Manager at Adobe), Russell Albin (Technical Principal Architect at Adobe), and Shane Herman (Senior Director of Customer Engineering). Today's topic is on  sticking points with Commerce Cloud, the challenges people bring upon themselves when they are deploying solutions out to Commerce Cloud and what we can due to avoid the problems.  0:00 Show starts.   1:40 Joseph asks his guests what the most common mistakes they see people making in Commerce Cloud.    1:58  Russell comes at the issue from the developer side. He sees a lot result from live inventory requests. He has cautioned people against it.  He encourages them to figure out what cadence is good enough (every 30 minutes, an hour, etc),and feed Commerce with the appropriate data. Otherwise, real time is always a problem.    4:51 Yarik sees a lot of customers not pay attention to full page caching. He shares a solution to that.   7:00 Shane tells about how some of their clients are using GraphicQL.    9:27 Joseph asks a question about GraphQL and caching. Shane says it doesn't natively cache but they can use Get.    10:33 Shane talks about how important it is todo so some self-help before you reach out to support. You can save yourself time and headaches.   12:38 Yarik describes the site analysis tool.    14:49 Shane addresses extensions from the marketplace and things to watch out for.   17:26 Russell discusses ideal configurations. In your config.PHP, it dumps some of the config values, to help with the compilation time. You can also add post deploy hook, all of this info is in the Dev Docs.    Google: Commerce Cloud Ideal State : for more info.   18:30 Yarik talks about indexers and index functionality. Extensions often invalidate indexers, and that causes issues in Commerce.    Connect with: Yarik Voronyi LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik-voronoy/ Russell Albin LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/russellalbin/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/RussellAlbin Shane Herman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaneherman/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/robot_atx Joseph Maxwell LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxwelljoseph/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/swiftotter_joe This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

Your host: Joseph Maxwell, Founder and CEO of SwiftOtter, Inc.   Special Guest: Peter Jaap Blaakmeer, multi-certified Magento developer and CTO at Elgentos Commerce   Peter Jaap Blaakmeer is the kind of guest who needs no introduction. In fact, if you ever have a few free minutes and want to see something amazing, check out his resume on LinkedIn to see all of the different projects he's worked on throughout the years. Having been a developer for over 15 years and achieved basically every certification he could possibly want, you could say this guy knows a thing or two about his craft. Peter has recently jumped into a pretty interesting project, and he was very kind to give us a glimpse into his world!   02:03 Peter's 3 main roles as a CTO, beyond his first designation as a developer at heart. Elgentos' unique client onboarding experience they provide for their merchants.   04:31 Cypress vs MFTF as a testing environment, from speed to integration.   07:18 Peter/Elgentos' new client with three separate Magento installations with different php versions, and a long road to combining all three into one.    11:24 How orders aren't having to be merged, and why that would be a massive challenge.   12:50 A valuable Magento crypt key trick you won't want to miss!   14:14 The intricate game plan Peter is using to get these websites all merged together (don't miss this!).   20:53 Peter talks all of us through the original layout/scope, approaching this project, and what the new scoping system is looking like right now. Why Elgentos is strict with their “one website, one store view” rule.   30:01 Peter's perspective on why this rare occasion is an opportunity for him, and a somewhat exciting challenge to run through, even though it's frustrating. From import tools to unique tricks, Peter runs through the technical overlay that makes this project above many of his staff's pay grade.   33:32 How Peter keeps his skills sharp and renews his excitement over new challenges, even after all these years. Truly, some things never change for some developers!   Connect with Peter: LinkedIn Twitter   Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

Your host: Joseph Maxwell, Founder and CEO of SwiftOtter, Inc.   Special Guest: Peter Rusin, Certified Senior Magento Developer from Cracow, Poland   SHOW NOTES   Peter Rusin, a Senior Magento Developer out of Poland, has a unique skill that he loves to exercise. When he comes across a monstrous challenge, he creates a tool to beat it, and he shares it openly with the community. Peter might be a great guy to get to know. He was kind enough to chat with Joseph about what his modules do, why he created them, and how to get started using them.   2:55 Peter explains his JS Layout Parcer (shared screen on the YouTube and SwiftOtter.com version of this podcast) which can be found here.   6:55 Joseph's thoughts on checkout modifications and why some companies flat out refuse to do them.    9:58 The difference between developers who assume a big, complicated problem just can't be solved (most of us) and those who fight to create a solution. The value of investing time in creating solutions NOW instead of later.   16:21 When should one use the JS Parcer and what to keep in mind.   18:27 Peter explains his system configuration toolkit (shared screen on the YouTube and SwiftOtter.com version of this podcast) which can be found here.   22:36 The value of side projects like this when it comes to job interviews and building your career resume (not to mention the growth and happiness you experience when working on your own side projects!)   24:41 Why Peter believes his modules truly will make life easier for developers and how it can promote “lazy development” in a positive sense.   26:26 Peter's informed thoughts on continuous learning and enjoying the future of Magento/Adobe Commerce. Connect with Peter: LinkedIn Twitter   Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter   This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

As a CTO, Michal Biarda juggles a lot throughout the day. Working as a solution specialist and architect, training developers on how to write better code, and keeping the company's daily technical projects on task are just the headlines of his job description. His passion is for helping developers to get away from writing “spaghetti code”, and he's excited to share more about that with us.   SHOW NOTES   4:26 How common is this “spaghetti code” and what defines it?   5:48 How Michal and his team have been able to conquer the problem of spaghetti code (code reviewing and initial perspective before writing code) and why spaghetti code is so prevalent in India.   9:43 Taking a project live versus maintaining it in the long run (version 1 versus version 3) and why this problem really comes down to agencies and their habits, both in cutting costs and also forcing developers to work obscenely long hours.   11:51 The most important parts of a code review, according to Michal, and going through the “SOLID Coding Principles” as a step by step guide. Michal uses an experience translating “Chinese Magento” to “Turkish Magento” to exemplify some of his points.   18:37 Are plug-ins really a good idea in Magento? What are the pros and cons? What about the “single responsibility principle”?   27:25 ORBA's Magento 2 CodeGen tool, how it works and why it can be so helpful. Find it here.   Connect with Michal: LinkedIn   Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter   Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

It's Joseph and Jesse's first podcast together in 2022 and they are absolutely stoked about it. January was a big month for SwiftOtter's digital agency, and as developers all know very well, a “big month” means lots of difficult problems to solve and lessons to learn! Join Joseph and Jesse to talk about what they've learned recently.   1:37 Shopware's $100M funding announcement, why competition right now is a great thing, and what Magento could add or modify to make sure they are demonstrating value as competition gets even stronger.   3:50 SwiftOtter's 2022 Certification Challenge (takes place during the first quarter of every year) and how it's better than ever this year, with the new collaborative study group meetings every other week. These study groups showcase exactly why becoming certified is an excellent way to grow your skills and prove them both!   6:54 Magento/Adobe Commerce 2.4.4 comes out on March 8th, 2022! Joseph has some holdbacks on how amazing it will be in the beginning..(hint: BUG THE MODULE VENDORS!) and even has a nice little rhyme to share.   9:28 Skilled problem solving: moving from “if” to “when”.   11:00 Jesse's issue: customers adding products to the cart and getting a zero value. Taking advantage of recent pull requests to start the investigation. Flagging changes, thinking about what values should be returned, and having the willingness to do significant refactoring.   15:57 The 3 things that will influence behavior.   16:48 The art of identifying what areas are most likely to present a problem, and narrowing down options to reduce wasted time when debugging.   18:00 Another instance of Xdebug completely saving the day right before code needed to get to production, and the real life reason why looking at pull requests is so important.   23:00 Joseph's pet peeve about running queries with your constructor.   24:13 Jesse's thoughts about coding with future functionality in mind and how it actually improves code in the present. Naming, arrays, and grouping as many things together to do one single thing.   30:21 Another cart issue where the value came up as zero dollars - infinite loops, and adding breakpoints somewhat randomly with Xdebug to start a search.   Connect with Jesse: LinkedIn Twitter   Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter   This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

Leon Helmus has been around the block a few times. He's gained a lot of experience with Magento 1 and Magento 2 in a relatively short amount of time, and with 6 Magento/Adobe certifications, he has very clearly validated his skills. Leon was happy to come share with us a few of the crazy circumstances he has worked through and the challenges he's overcome in recent past.   SHOW NOTES 2:18 5 different parties connected with the same project. Using things like “feature environments”, how do you make sure good code gets into the staging environment with all of these 3rd party developers and complicated groups involved? 5:38 How does Leon's CI Pipeline handle this kind of management and what tools are they using to keep things streamlined and smooth? 9:30 SwiftOtter's Magento 2 driver which can be found here. 12:20 Testing, acceptance environments and production deployment without losing process continuation. 15:32 Feature branches to prevent bad code from getting to production. 19:00 Code reviews have been on Joseph's mind a lot recently, but we haven't talked about automating code review yet. How will that work and when will automated checks be performed? 25:07 Leon's most important piece(s) of advice to give, based on his experience. -- Connect with Leon: LinkedIn Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter   Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

It's Christmas week in America and Joseph's got his Santa hat on! Grab a seat and let's talk about what's in the near future for us developers, going into 2022, and the “how”, “why” and “when” behind code refactoring.   SHOW NOTES   1:17 End of life for PHP 7.3, PHP 8 and the next version of Magento.   3:52 The new “Breeze” theme, which is supposed to be a high-performing Luma theme and compete against the new Hyvä themes.   5:32 Certification news: Adobe's certification “refresh cycle”, all of the updates coming our way very soon, when SwiftOtter will have new materials ready, and if the new tests are looking easier or harder.   8:26 The new MacBook Pro - is it worth it? How fast is it and how does it change Magento development? Why is speed so important when you're debugging, aside from the time aspect?   13:20 What really is “refactoring code”, why might you do it, and what should you be thinking about when you do it?   25:55 What happens when you get into a massive class, say it's 500 lines of code, and you just can't even figure out where to start?   28:15 Jesse shares the key aspects that he would be looking for, in respect to refactoring code. “Can I put this code in a single box that does one thing?” - Jesse   29:41 SwiftOtter's increasing emphasis on understanding architecture and what actually goes into building things the right way.   Connect with Jesse: LinkedIn Twitter   Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter   Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

Here we are! After getting hung up on the wonderful world of Hyvä themes and the amazing future in store for the Magento frontend, we're finally back to talk about the Magento revolution. You might also call it the “Magento fork” or “The Mage-OS distribution”. Willem has much to say about where Magento might be in 3-5 years and how MOSCA's plan is moving forward. SHOW NOTES 1:30 Where will Magento be in 3 years, and why was the open letter written and published in September of 2021? Why are “microservices”, “SaaS” and “PWA” all sore spots for Willem? Why is Willem not ready to give up on the Monolith structure of Magento Open Source and why did they decide that the open letter was the right path to take to change? 8:55 What were the core intentions behind creating and maintaining a Magento Open Source clone? Is it more of a precautionary action to keep Adobe in check, or a hostile takeover? 12:15 How has the community responded to this movement and is that response changing as time goes on and the idea normalizes? 12:58 The Poland event in September, big names who showed up at the drop of a hat to talk about the future of Magento, and the history of where this whole idea really started (back when Ben Marks was involved). 14:58 Adobe's initial response to their plans and how “fork” really wasn't the right word to describe their plans. 16:33 The actual technological explanation of what the Mage-OS Distribution will look like, how it will be structured, and when the community might gain access to it. Willem gives us a peek behind the curtain on what needs to happen regarding funding, leadership and the logistical aspects of this startup. 21:14 Joseph asks Willem to step outside of the Magento community for a few minutes and talk about a few things from a truly objective perspective. Joseph brings up the great merchant exodus that we are seeing away from Magento, and asks Willem for his honest opinion on where Magento is at in its lifecycle. 29:17 Several months after the call for a Magento Open Source roadmap, Adobe came out and defined their roadmap, indicating that OS would only be getting maintenance fixes and security fixes in the future. Willem shares his opinion on what we can see from Adobe in the next 5 years and what our responsibilities might be to pick up their slack. 32:53 What conversations are taking place in the task force meetings regarding community and ongoing innovation. 39:01 Why the Magento community is so special, and why it's a shame if Adobe doesn't “celebrate and harvest that energy”. 41:41 How the market has changed in the last 5 years and where Magento is really positioned in the market at the moment, taking into account the Big Commerce and Shopify boom at that time. Check out Hyvä HERE Connect with Willem: LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating ecommerce developers around! [Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music]

Matt Sherer has been around PHP and Magento development for quite some time now. Having been a part of the Mediotype team before it was swallowed up into Blue Acorn iCi, he came to love the Magento community atmosphere and camaraderie present among eCommerce developers. He doesn't get much time these days to interact with the community, which is one of the side effects of taking on the responsibility of a technical architect role at a thriving agency. We're glad to have him on this show to share his experience with us and show us what it really looks like to transition from a senior developer into the responsibilities of an architect! SHOW NOTES 1:05 What does everyday life look like for a solutions architect at a major Magento agency? 3:16 To quote Matt, “you can't get into Magento without challenges”, so sometimes it's hard to find that one tough experience to share. Matt's most recent difficulty centered around a merchant changing major plans at the last minute. We've all dealt with this before, but when it actually happens, it comes down to the architect to identify the changes, make sure everyone understands them completely, set expectations between all parties involved, organize a timeline and project the timeline/potential cost. 5:16 What are the practical differences between being a senior developer and an architect? Matt argues that it is primarily a “social role” and centers around “people management”, but of course it is much more complicated than those very simple descriptions. 8:10 How Matt believes a developer, architect or anyone in the Magento/eCommerce space can stay driven, creative and productive and defend against burnout (which he has faced). Joseph talks about reaching “critical mass” and how a decline into burnout is not a quick thing, but a slow process that can be identified before it becomes a huge problem. Matt's former boss used to say “the last 10 percent is the hardest" (when running a Magento project). Connect with Matt: LinkedIn Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music

We thought this episode was going to be about MOSCA and the Mage OS Distribution, but we spent so much time talking about something else (something very important) that we decided to do two episodes with this special guest. Willem Wigman has been around the Magento ecosystem for about 10 years. After freelancing, pushing hard with Magento 1, and then burning out on the transition to Magento 2, Willem found himself back to working on Luma and hating it. He developed such a disdain for Luma that he ended up deciding to fix it by reinventing the wheel, and that is where we got Hyvä, a Magento front-end that makes sense. Why does it make sense? Let's dive in and see! SHOW NOTES 1:12 Who is Willem Wigman, where did he come from and why does Hyvä exist? 3:26 Why shouldn't every website be on PWA and how to decide if that is the right option or not. He believes every website doesn't need to act like an app, and that loading speed, situational logic and actual purchase psychology all have to all be taken into account. 9:14 Why exactly is Hyvä so much better than Luma? 12:12 Why it's actually GOOD that Hyvä is not free, but is paid tool, and how we can look forward to this great tool expanding and improving quickly. Willem explains his vision for a “Hyvä ecosystem”. 16:24 A quick introduction to MOSCA and the Mage OS Distribution, what Willem thinks about Monolith vs Microservices/de-composed front-end. He explains why a lot of people started to give up on Adobe's plan for Magento and why he thinks this new energy in the community is helpful. 21:06 Willem suggests that if Hyvä isn't a good idea for a merchant, it's pretty likely that Magento wasn't a good option in the first place. Joseph and Willem just plainly say it: “Magento 1 to Magento 2 is a downgrade (regarding loading speeds)” and they discuss the realities of when Magento isn't the right fit at all. 26:56 When is Hyvä probably NOT the right solution? What will you have to re-write with Hyvä, as opposed to when you use PWA solutions, etc. 30:55 What have been the biggest challenges agencies face in the first 6 months using Hyvä and what should they anticipate when they incorporate this new tool? Willem compares it to learning a new dialect within the same language, and insists that most skeptics end up changing their mind, accepting any minor downsides for the sake of all of the great upsides. 34:14 How Hyvä is built with debt and legacy code in mind, and defends against decay and future maintenance. Due to its stable format, Hyvä has seen very few unhappy customers, and many of their customers have said that 1000 euros is a “steal” for what they are getting. 40:19 Willem's mysterious book recommendation for us! “Good friends buy each other this book” -Willem Check out Hyvä HERE Connect with Willem: LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating ecommerce developers around! [Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music]

Eric Allatt is an 8-time certified Magento developer (kind of a lot, right?) who is kind of obsessed with website performance. He loves it so much that he has developed a pretty robust module that helps people to increase their speeds and strip the weight that holds them down! SHOW NOTES 2:46 Eric explains his Cyberic Performance project (which can be found HERE) and what led him to create it. 5:41 How to fire up his module and put it to use in your daily work. Of course, we would all love to have a module that just automatically works with any website, but that isn't quite the case. “Starting in yellow and finishing in green” as opposed to “starting in yellow and finishing in red”). What to look out for and what needs to happen before you look to use this module. Eric believes that this module, even at its worst, can certainly still help you out in certain ways. 8:02 How Eric's module is different from others in its bundling, and how he has come to understand the resources available in RequireJS. 13:32 - 30:35 Eric's 6 steps you can take to achieve incredible speeds in Magento. Some of these tools will seem simple, but Eric helps you to understand exactly what to do with these tools. 23:50 Magento's list of modules can be found HERE. 27:42 Does actually disabling a module have a positive impact on performance? 30:35 The law of diminishing returns, as it relates to Magento performance and ongoing optimization efforts.   Connect with Eric: LinkedIn Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! [Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!]

Ivan has been around since the beginning. To be specific, he was one of the core Magento 1 developers, brought into the Magento company as an “Adobe Flex” developer. His experience and skillset give him a keen ability to spot inefficiencies, performance bottlenecks and security issues within the platform. Naturally, he has some very valuable tips to share from his experience that might just help you fix whatever issue you're dealing with now or in the future! -- SHOW NOTES [more at SwiftOtter.com] 3:45 The majority of the merchants Ivan works with are dealing with database overload and don't know what to do. His first exercise is to try and find “esoteric solutions” that will solve their unique problem, not just for the time being, but for the future, allowing them to continue to build their databases without the fear of another major breakdown. 6:13 Ivan shares a story about a Magento 1 customer in ~2018 who wanted to have a website with 200 different domain names and the major challenges that this brought up. 8:53 A tip for developers, regarding databases, when approaching certain merchant concerns. 9:37 Joseph's controversial “anti-ProductRepository” post he put out earlier in 2021 and Ivan's project which can be found HERE. Ivan explains this project he has been working on and how “preloading” works to your advantage. 12:40 For further explanation of Ivan's preloading strategy, see his Meet Magento UK talk right HERE.  14:40 Ivan's frustration with the current Open Source management and how long it takes for a pull request to get attention. 16:40 A short discussion on what this Mage Open Source Task Force will yield and what might actually happen. Ivan believes the Mage-OS and Adobe can coexist and actually have a functioning relationship that is helpful, without throwing the whole thing out, but he has much to share about what he thinks the challenges, opportunities and realities are surrounding this process. 27:45 Watch “Load in the Loop” HERE. Eric Hileman of MageMojo presented issues in the websites hosted on MageMojo, then he and Ivan worked to solve those issues on the show. It's very entertaining and educational! -- Connect with Ivan: LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! [Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music]

Łukasz Bajsarowicz is a phenomenal developer and has become well-known for training other developers throughout Europe. What makes Lukasz' story unique is that while he is extremely knowledgeable and very proficient at his craft, he firmly believes that money isn't the goal, and that you can get so caught up in your pursuit of “success” that you forget about your mental health and get away from what really makes you happy. In the last couple of years, he has faced some incredible challenges, both personally and professionally, and we get a little peek into his experiences on this week's episode of Smash the Bug.   SHOW NOTES [more on SwiftOtter.com]   3:52 Problems aren't always technical, of course. Łukasz lets us into his world and shares with us a more personal challenge he has faced in his career over the past year, and reminds us of the importance of maintaining our mental health through the changes we experience. 8:18 Łukasz' upcoming USA trip and his excitement over visiting people he hasn't met in person or hasn't seen in a long time. 10:32 The intense challenge of jumping into two projects as a tech lead that were at the same stage and had the same timeline, and the lessons that can be learned from such a difficult situation. 14:45 His massive project that required dealing with roughly 12 million products: how he spent about 3 months tweaking the admin dashboard / admin panel and debugged his way into a realistic solution. Hint: eversql.com 21:45 Łukasz' bit of advice to developers regarding storefront usability and integration with the end customer. 23:00 How Łukasz is exercising his knowledge and seeking to sharpen his skills with core contributions (stay tuned for another podcast episode where Łukasz and Joseph will dive into that further). He also has been a part of CodeWars and other unique “game-style” exercises, which he strongly recommends. 28:30 Why Łukasz whole-heartedly agrees that “you learn the most by teaching others”. Connect with Łukasz: LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn  Twitter  Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

We caught Eric Erway right before Adobe kicked off their Magento Open Source Task Force, a newly-assembled group of great minds who are coming together to save and pave the way for the future of Magento/Adobe Commerce Open Source. Eric believes that developer experience is just as important as the merchant experience, and that Adobe really is committed to making sure the future of Open Source is bright and built to thrive, as it always has.   SHOW NOTES [more at SwiftOtter.com]   4:09 The in-person events that helped the Magento community to thrive throughout the years are greatly missed, according to Eric, because some of the most important conversations started and ended at events like Imagine. “Here's to hoping that we are able to get together next year at Adobe Summit” - Joseph. 5:35 Here at the very beginning of the Open Source Task-Force initiative, everyone is wanting to know how this is going to work, when we will hear about planned changes and what communication we can look for. Eric helps to answer these questions. “It's hard to do this 280 characters at a time” - Eric 7:49 The decentralization of the [Magento] communities as new technologies and new opportunities are brought into the picture, like Hyva, Vue Storefront, etc. 8:39 How do we look at innovation and take advantage of a new contribution model? 9:29 Regarding the future of the Magento Association and taking over the development/ownership of Open Source, what's really going to happen here? Eric explains it from Adobe's perspective. 11:52 Contributions seem to be really difficult, and when something really needs to be done, it's hard to wait around for all the bureaucracy. Eric has a few thoughts to share about how Adobe will try to improve this in the future, how communication will work and what needs to be put into place to promote performance, security, etc. 16:11 Igor Miniailo's blog/article (see it here) and why careful and clear communication is both a requirement here and a privilege. 18:10 So where is Magento Open Source headed? Adobe seems to believe it has reached a level of maturity, while the community doesn't seem to agree with that. “Decentralized” is a big word that Eric uses, while diving deep into the concepts of “maintaining a lean core”. 22:31 Joseph dives deeper into the concept of maturity and the future of performance optimization. Eric brings up PHP 8.1 and the work associated with making sure everything is tested and working well. They mention GraphQL, Page Builder and more. Eric stresses the importance of creating a robust release calendar and having a better system for “roadmap communications”. 25:00 Here we are. Let's talk about Mage-OS for a little bit. The OS alliance is set on protecting the future of Magento, and Joseph can identify with the struggles they're voicing in that he is developing his own version of the product repository to fix an existing issue that he doesn't think will get fixed through a pull request. Eric says that we all owe each other solid communication regarding the issues that are plaguing the platform. 28:00 How we move forward and solve this problem, as we can't do it “280 characters at a time”. Eric has a lot of empathy for the developers in the community and wants to do this thing right.   Connect with Eric: LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter   Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

We write so much code and we love it! Just write it out, proofread it and you're done! Right? Well..sometimes. In fact, many agencies still operate that way, but SwiftOtter can testify to the reality that code review processes are absolutely vital to the long-term quality of the code we write. In fact, SwiftOtter just hired a great developer to lead the code review process because they're so good at this task. In a world where billable hours and quick turnaround times are supreme, we must remember that quality is the only option, before profits or short-term gratification.   SHOW NOTES [more at SwiftOtter.com]   00:40 News & updates! Reacticon, upcoming conferences, PHP 7.3 hitting “end of life”, PHP 7.4's best new features, and more.   3:35 Our next Ecommerce Ninja Training (November 3rd - Set a reminder HERE) and Jesse's live training debut with an introduction to PWA.   5:15 What really IS code review, a couple basic reasons why it's so important, and how great teams should be thinking about it (spoiler alert: a lot of teams don't really do it).   6:20 How the transfer from the developer (writing the code) to the code reviewer should work, and what the value is in having two sets of eyes on that code.   8:40 The importance and format of documentation in light of the code review process. How should the code be properly annotated to facilitate a smooth review?   10:15 Why being asked “so why did you do it that way” is very helpful for us!   11:15 Are you “getting in the zone” when writing code or “getting lazy”? Just knowing that someone is going to review your code is a huge benefit for developers (while frustrating, at times).   12:10 When someone thinks the code reviewer's feedback is bad feedback - the value in disagreement, and how to move through that.    14:00 Why SwiftOtter's developers actually love the code review process, and why that is so good for company culture.   16:50 A few simple but incredibly detailed and important tips for when you are writing code and anticipating a code review, and the best way to respond to “nit picking”, whether you're a junior or a senior dev.   22:00 Example: The difference between a secure and insecure query and how a good reviewer could catch that. Is your code secure?   23:30 A few big questions for a code reviewer to ask about the developer's code, and things they should be looking for. What is “self-documenting code” and what is “cyclomatic complexity”? Joseph uses the term “code smell”.   26:35 How important is naming? It seems elementary, but it's a bigger part of our job than we think.   33:45 Pulling out temporary code, commented code, and “cleaning up the mess” more often. Joseph mentions referencing and explains the excuses we often use to leave bad code in there.   Connect with Jesse: LinkedIn Twitter Connect with Joseph: LinkedIn Twitter   Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!

Shawn Abramson recently made the switch from an agency to working directly with Adobe as a Magento Architect. The majority of his projects are large in scale, but in order to solve a problem, one of them took him to a place he's never been before. How far have YOU gone to smash a bug? -- SHOW NOTES [See more at SwiftOtter.com/SmashtheBug]   3:30 What does a Magento architect's day look like (tasks, teams and projects)? 5:18 Part one of Shawn's intense challenge that took him all the way to Tokyo in order to solve a problem. Due to the way their Magento setup was configured, they had to make really hard decisions about how their databases were going to communicate and how new products were going to be launched. Spoiler alert: it seemed like a truly impossible situation. 10:05 Shawn's great experience with implementing PWA on this big project, getting some much-needed help from Jisse Reitsma. Shawn explains how developers seem to fall into two different boxes when it comes to Magento front-end. 12:20 Part two of Shawn's challenge overseas and how difficult dealing with customer data was in China. Data had to be strategically placed and moved, orders had to go through WeChat, and fulfillment/shipping got complicated. 16:10 Shawn's advice to developers who are just starting out and/or looking to grow. He talks about mindset, goals and what to occupy yourself with in your spare time.   -- Connect with Shawn Abramson on Social: LinkedIn Connect with Joseph Maxwell on Social LinkedIn Twitter Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers. Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career! [Special thanks to TrendingAudio for our awesome theme music!]

Herve Guetin is getting hit with some intense issues on a daily basis. As a Magento Consultant at WIDE, he has amassed an impressive list of do's and don'ts, especially on the topic of Magento architecture and store configuration. In an effort to save us all some time and prevent us from feeling the same heartaches, he explains a few of his recent experiences and what we can do to avoid the same pitfalls. -- SHOW NOTES   2:10 Jumping into projects with deep legacy. 6:15 Fitting into Magento's framework without "best practices" requires......fitting into Magento's framework! But you have to figure out how. 11:30 Making sure the merchant can access the data they need, when they need it, and in a way that makes some sense to them. 13:00 The line between laziness and successfully simplifying your code writing. 18:45 Sometimes the "best way" is not the right way, especially if the merchant has been doing something a certain way for years and changing it would cause more harm than it prevents. Don't forget about backwards compatibility! 23:50 Closing remarks and summary. -- Connect with Hervé Guétin on Social: LinkedIn: herveguetin Connect with Joseph Maxwell on Social: LinkedIn: Maxwelljoseph Twitter: swiftotter_joe Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out swiftotter.com/artofdebugging to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career. (Theme music courtesy of TrendingAudio)

What is Barny Shergold good at? Hmm...well, lots of things. Barny has been developing software for over 30 years, dabbling in a bunch of different coding languages and, of course, developing without proper frameworks and foundations. Barny discovered Magento in about 2010 when he got a job at an agency that was really excited about the up-and-coming platform. His job was basically to make it useful for their clients. Throughout the past 10 years, he's shifted his focus a bit to helping developers get things right in the first place, before they write code and build processes that won't age well. Sound familiar? -- SHOW NOTES (full notes at SwiftOtter.com)   After 30 years in software development, he sees a clear connection between the developer's ability to clearly communicate progress and technical specifics to non-technical parties and the ability for a developer to reach their highest potential.   Joseph posted a tip on LinkedIn a couple months before the filming of this podcast that stirred the community up quite a bit. It was a reminder that MySQL does not handle NULL values in the same way that PHP interprets them, and that devs need to be careful how they use NULL. Barny and Joseph explore this issue and share advice.   A challenge for developers and how well they understand database structures.   A reminder of creative ways to store data in order to make our lives easier down the road.   A suggestion for how to counsel merchants when they're thinking about a platform change. It's definitely not an easy conversation.   A challenge to leave notes in your code. Like Barny said, “I understood every word you just said, but I didn't understand the sentence”. -- Connect with Barny Shergold on Social:   LinkedIn   Connect with Joseph Maxwell on Social:   LinkedIn   Twitter   YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest!   This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers!   Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around!   The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career!   Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of TrendingAudio)

Who is Ray Bogman? Ray is a 6-time Adobe Commerce (Magento) certified developer who now works for Adobe, Inc. and finds himself completing a pretty vast array of tasks on a daily basis. To over-simplify his job, he supports Magento (Adobe) Commerce clients and helps a number of massive businesses around the world to maximize their experience on the platform. His newest project is to migrate a few big merchants over to the new Adobe Commerce Cloud, which will be interesting for us all to witness! With his insider knowledge at Adobe, he's able to provide us with a few helpful insights on where Magento (Adobe) Commerce might be headed and why he's excited about its future. -- MINI SHOW NOTES (Full notes available at SwiftOtter.com) Why Ray believes Adobe is improving Magento's total cost of ownership and improving its ability to adapt for aggressive growth. How micro services are going to improve Magento's agility, and why some of the skeptical developers might take a second look. Joseph takes a minute to break down the value of microservices with Ray and asks him if he thinks their value outweighs the concern that many developers have over the potential lack of customization present. Ray insists that his greatest challenges with clients tend to stem back to violations of Magento best practices, and this is where saying "no" to the merchant might not be happening often enough. How PWA is causing the community to feel the magic again, like back in the Magento 1 days when the sky was the limit and it was a whole new world. How quickly will PWA catch on, on it's React foundation, and are developers excited to learn it? -- Connect with Ray on Social: LinkedIn Connect with Joseph on Social: LinkedIn Twitter YouTube   Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers. Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career. Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/   (Theme music courtesy of TrendingAudio)

Well, it has been quite the year for Magento (Adobe Commerce), PHP and really just developer tools in general! Hyva was introduced, which is going to dramatically change the way Magento websites look and how creatively they can be presented to the world. PHP 8 will soon be integrated with Magento 2.4.3, and Page Builder for Magento ushered in the kind of efficient editability that we've been wanting for a very long time! 2021 has truly been a year full of useful upgrades and big changes, and it's clear that the next chapter in the world of eCommerce web development is going to be a thrilling one. Are you ready for it? -- MINI SHOW NOTES (Full notes available at SwiftOtter.com) A new Javascript convenience tool that you might want to remember! https://how-i-experience-web-today.com is a great reminder of why websites must be strategically built, and not over built. Sometimes, it makes sense to completely re-engineer a process and sometimes it's literally the worst thing you could do, depending on your understanding of what actually is happening. Joseph has a great example. Is GitHub too big for some of your needs as a developer? The answer is yes. Where will you go if you aren't going to GitHub? The answer is the SwiftOtter Slack channel. It's growing like wildfire and we don't want you to miss out. While it's growing fast, it's small enough for each and every member to make a difference in other people's lives and get high-quality help when they need it. Collaboration works best if it's not too complicated, so maybe going to GitHub should be your second option instead of your first option. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free! -- Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Have you joined the free SwiftOtter Slack community? It's exploding and we don't want you to miss out. Go to SwiftOtter.com/Slack to join for free and get plugged into what might be the best group of collaborating developers around! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career! Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of TrendingAudio)

You might not have heard of him before (totally kidding here), but his name is Benjamin Marks and he is the director of growth for Shopware in the “places that don't speak German”. Ben spent many years with Magento as what he would call their “evangelist” and was carried through the transition when Adobe purchased Magento. In 2021, he decided it was time to follow his hunch that Shopware was laying the foundation that Ecommerce would build its future on. Was he right? Maybe so, but as he quickly mentions in this conversation with Joseph, he believes that Adobe Commerce (Magento) will make strides towards greater openness in the near future. In fact, he believes they will have to in order to keep up with the kind of culture that Shopware is building. Ben actually believes this town is big enough for both platforms. Interesting, right? Let's see why he thinks that. -- MINI SHOW NOTES (Full notes available at SwiftOtter.com) What immediately drew Ben to Shopware was their culture of openness and how their business has been rooted in collaboration from the very beginning. Ben felt that Adobe was losing their sight of the “open source” goal for Magento, while Shopware was leaning into it more and more. Ben's thoughts on which platform a new developer should spend more time on: Shopware or Magento (Adobe Commerce)? His opinion isn't simple. Are there more front-end devs than back-end devs right now? As Ben and Joseph dive into the world of frameworks, customization and dependency management mechanisms, they shed light on the maturity of ecommerce development and the issue of building overly complex tools that don't age well. An abundance of creativity and comradery is still at the core of this career path! -- Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career! Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of TrendingAudio)

Ryan Keelaghan started at cbdMD.com as their "Principal Web Engineer" back in 2020. As you can imagine, 2020 brought some intense growth for his company, so his job description started bending and adjusting pretty quickly. Being the "jack of all trades" has benefits, but it can also be a bit confusing. As the lead back-end developer at his company, the successes and failures of their whole online storefront fall back on him and his front-end lead. How is he handling that reality, you might ask? Actually, he's handling it really well, and he has a lot of valuable information to share with us. Get comfortable and let's hear what he has to say! -- MINI SHOW NOTES (full notes on SwiftOtter.com) What really is a "Principal Web Engineer", employed directly by an Ecommerce retailer? How do we prepare for big projects like large-scale upgrades and maintain our sanity? On a similar note, how do we communicate progress to the merchant/client and fight against hurrying/skipping ahead? Setting a routine to keep your system up to date is important. Proactive defense against data breaches is more important than we can put into words. How can we be proactive to defend against these data breaches, and how do we communicate the need for this extra work (to the merchant) which doesn't add to the company's bottom line? People usually start careers in web development with a real love for the creativity and uniqueness that the job presents. However, as time goes on, devs tend to get away from doing the work they actually love. This might be because the job or position they take pays better (even though it isn't as fun) or they simply get burnt out with boring and annoying tasks. Ryan makes it abundantly clear how important it is to make time for doing "what makes you happy". How do you do that? Ryan has some suggestions. -- Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career! Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of TrendingAudio)

Wow. Magento just got much better! How? Grab a seat and let's talk about it. Adobe Commerce (Magento) has made some big strides with 2.4.3 and opened up quite a bit of opportunity for developers and merchants alike. As Jesse put it so simply, they may have fixed one of their greatest flaws. Let's talk! -- MINI SHOW NOTES (full notes available on SwiftOtter.com) This might be the biggest update to Adobe Commerce (Magento) in a LONG time. We've been waiting for it for what seems like forever. Are you excited?? Sometimes our assumptions are dead wrong and an issue that should take ten minutes to resolve takes hours. For instance, "null" doesn't always equal zero. To add to the frustration, sometimes we make the wrong assumption twice and don't journal when it happens the first time... RabbitMQ can provide so much value. Are you using it? The importance of generating DbSchema whitelist and why database backups get messed up. -- Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career! Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)

What's your next career move? How are you going to score the ideal job? What are the best agencies looking for in the next developer they hire? Jonathan Lorenzi, Director of Engineering at Corra and six-time Adobe Commerce (Magento) certified developer joins us for episode 23 with a bunch of helpful insights to share! -- MINI SHOW NOTES (full show notes available at SwiftOtter.com) Should a dev be hired for their skill level or their commitment level? Where does passion come in? How can you know if someone has a passion for what they do, and how will this translate into the life of a developer? Sometimes when you don't get the job, it's not really a "no", but a "not yet". When an interview doesn't land you a position, make sure to get a clear answer on why you didn't make the cut. Be humble about it, and show that you desire to close the gaps in your skillset. Interviews are stressful, but Jonathan reminds us that good developers don't “stay on the market very long” and that the best way to interview is to get comfortable, be confident in your knowledge, take your time answering questions, and prepare a few thoughtful questions of your own. Jonathan's advice for the interviewer is to never ask questions that won't really be asked of that person if they are hired for the job. This is a waste of time, and an interview really doesn't need to be a frustrating trap. It should be a comfortable and meaningful experience where both the interviewer and the interviewee feel like they are working towards the same goal. What is YOUR dream job? Are you prepared for that next interview? Are you being paid what you're worth? Do you feel valued and appreciated by your current employer? Feel free to reach out to us if you need any insight on these things. SwiftOtter exists to be a helpful resource for you and we've got your back! -- Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career! Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)

Welcome to Episode 22! This week, Joseph and Jesse discuss the exciting upcoming changes to Magento and PHP, what these changes might mean for developers, and the unique challenges they've both been facing in their every day work. What have YOU been working on lately?? Leave a comment and let us know. You might even be our next guest on Smash the Bug! -- MINI SHOW NOTES (full notes coming soon to SwiftOtter.com) Magento 2.4.3 releases on 8/10/21! PHP 8 and the "null safe operator". Every single character that we write in code is technical debt. The takeaway isn't to avoid writing code, but to write tighter code that will require the least amount of maintenance in years to come. Jesse explains his recent challenge that got him all tied up in a knot. Joseph explains his ongoing battle with integration testing and the tedious challenges he's been facing. Joseph hits hard on the importance of note taking and leveraging the space "outside of your mind". -- Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career! Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)

Welcome to Episode 21! Eduard Zuiev isn't your everyday Magento developer. Actually, he has six certifications and co-founded his company, PROFSTEP in 2014. While this was a short interview, Eduard's story will resonate with developers who are committed to their craft and servicing their clients well, and it might shed some light on what it's really like to be a "founder". -- MINI SHOW NOTES (full notes coming soon to SwiftOtter.com) While taking some precious vacation time with his family, Eduard had to deal with the most intense technical challenge of his career while attempting to climb an actual mountain! He lets us into the world of a “founder” and what it really looks like to run a company that puts clients first. Joseph can certainly relate, as it took him years after starting SwiftOtter to get to the point where he felt comfortable with taking a vacation and leaving his post. Eduard shares his daily habits and his methods of growing as a developer. While he doesn't have time to take in all of the information, he loves Magento and has amassed a great toolbox of resources to help him stay fresh and learn new things on a regular basis. “Every day, I'm starting” is a golden nugget from this episode, because a developer who starts the day with a readiness to learn and grow and a desire to climb that day's mountain (pun intended) is the one who will do great things! -- Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career! Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)

Jisse Reitsma is an extremely knowledgeable, Dutch ecommerce developer with an impressive history. His core focus nowadays is on his education platform, Yireo.com, where he trains developers on Magento 2, Shopware 6, React and Vue. From a recent public debate on social media to a helpful discussion here on Smash the Bug, Joseph and Jisse certainly can produce quite an interesting conversation. In this explosive episode of Smash the Bug, Joseph and Jisse explore the conversation of product repositories, efficiency enhancements and what originally sparked their little disagreement on social media. -- MINI SHOW NOTES (complete notes coming soon to SwiftOtter.com!) Why are there two distinct camps regarding product repositories? The real question is: are they making life simpler or is there a better way? Exploring if the issue is really with product repository, or if it should be handled on a case-by-case basis. A good developer isn't defined by their ability to memorize and replicate the same processes over and over, but rather their ability to be flexible, explore options and activate their creativity when a time-tested process they've conquered suddenly breaks down. To quote the great Ben Marks from his Twitter page, “Remember, all software is garbage, and we are merely sanitation engineers”. What if the community embraced open source and came up with a viable solution to this product repository/collection debate? After all, what is Hyva about and why is everyone excited about it? It's all about throwing out the parts of Magento (Adobe Commerce) that aren't working well and creating a solution from the outside. Paraphrasing Joseph's statement at about 26:00, it's time to go from the complaining stage to the critique stage and to take action instead of throwing rocks. -- Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging is AVAILABLE NOW! Check out https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ to order, get more info or download a robust preview. This is NOT a self-help book designed to change your title to "senior developer". Rather, it contains the information you need in order to become an excellent debugger and an invaluable developer, regardless of your job title. The book is $40 USD, shipped anywhere in the world for free. This is the next step to becoming an incredible developer and taking the next step in your career! Get it at https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)

Ed Finkler, Founder of OSMIHELP.ORG, joins us for this episode to talk about what may be the most important bug we have to smash on a regular basis. Burnout is far more serious than we tend to think, until we're going through it ourselves! In fact, with the unique challenges that ecommerce developers face on a daily basis, it is almost guaranteed that each one of us will experience burnout at some point in our careers. The battle for your own mind is worth fighting. -- KEY TAKEAWAYS [coming soon: full show notes at SwiftOtter.com] “Burnout” isn't a technical diagnosis. Unfortunately, when people experience burnout, their mental condition may even worsen due to the perception that nobody else identifies with their situation or understands the personal challenges it presents every day. Burnout is uniquely identified by the inability to manage stress levels properly, enjoy tasks that were once enjoyable, feel like progress is being made when tasks are completed, or even have a confident “sense of agency”, which is the conscious recognition that one has power over their own situation. Programming is certainly a difficult job, but an ecommerce developer is the creator, ongoing maintenance provider and solution designer for online merchants who often demand a lot from them. The action really never dies down with how many different things developers have on their plates. Because of the way professionals must operate in this career, experiencing burnout is almost guaranteed to happen at some point. Ed revealed to us the reality that “burnout” is really just a euphemism for “episodic depression” and that it's important to understand that everyone goes through this in different ways and for different reasons. Burnout cannot be remedied with more money, easier projects or the occasional pizza party. The sense that one's peers truly care about them and desire to see them succeed is an incredible antidote. One's greatest asset is their mind, so how come it doesn't seem important to take care of that thing? Visit Ed's website at osmihelp.org and for additional resources, check out helpguide.org Are you dealing with burnout or "episodic depression"? Do you feel that your coworkers and/or managers don't understand the importance of mental health? We'd love for you to post a comment here or drop us a line at Joseph@swiftotter.com. We're happy to be a listening ear and an encouragement to you! In addition to that, please feel encouraged to join our Slack community where over 1200 developers are collaborating and encouraging one another on a daily basis! Email us or connect with us on social media and we will happily share an invitation link with you. -- Do YOU have an incredible debugging story to share? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)

Are you interested in moving up as a developer? Or, maybe you just aren't happy where you're at and you're curious what an interview looks like at a healthy, growing agency? On episode 18 of Smash the Bug, Joseph is in the hot seat for an intense technical interview! Whether you are going to be interviewing for a new position or interviewing others, be inspired and motivated by this example of a successful technical interview! -- KEY TAKEAWAYS Joseph's early career, key advances, and what has mostly gotten him to where he is now. Where Joseph believes he still needs the most growth and the tools he wants to learn more about. What Joseph's first moves are when he is faced with a "brick wall" situation (an agent problem in need of solving). Joseph's most recent accomplishment that led him to feel satisfied and confident with the end results. *Rapid fire questions!* Differences between production and developer mode What is a repository? What is the difference between a router and a controller? What is the difference between "bundled" and "grouped" products? Someone wants to print an admin order, but the page looks terrible. It has menu and action buttons still on it. How would you fix it? Jesse has great feedback for Joseph's answers to these rapid fire questions! -- Do YOU have an interesting experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)

On this episode of Smash the Bug, Joseph had the opportunity to chat with Max Chadwick, Back-End Tech Lead at Rightpoint (formerly Something Digital). Max has been around the block as an ecommerce developer and, as a Tech Lead at a large agency, finds himself at the helm of the ship whenever one of their clients has an urgent problem to address. His experience has led him to pinpoint the key differentiators between a novice developer and a seasoned professional, and subsequently, what makes for a high-functioning team. In this episode, we get a SMALL chunk of his wisdom. What do you want to hear from Max next time? Post a comment and let us know! -- KEY TAKEAWAYS Max figured out a while back that finding the real root of an issue and documenting your entire process is the way to achieve excellence, not just seeking out a quick (and likely temporary) fix to a problem. Maxchadwick.xyz is Max's public blog where he documents his processes, from taking the initial call from a merchant in distress to informing them that the issue has been handled. You might want to go bookmark that right now before you forget, cause that could be a huge help to you when you're in a bind! “Debugging can kind of feel like a bottomless pit at some times, and you can feel like you're just throwing stuff at a wall” - Max Why is blogging such a powerful tool? Long story short: making sure that you know how to explain your process to someone else will solidify the process in your own mind. Max has been creating blog posts about his debugging experiences for more than eight years and continues to see blogging as a necessary part of his daily work. Max argues that a spreadsheet can come in handy when debugging, to help you categorize where and when you're seeing these “cases” and he's even been able to use the statistics from his data-gathering to shorten the problem-solving process. n98-Magerun2's dev:console is a little-known resource and should be in your tool box, just in case you run into production issues and you need a way to evaluate the issue without interrupting it. Consider the Bug Bounty program if you want to sharpen your skills AND contribute to an excellent cause at the same time. Max continues to participate on a regular basis! Max's Blog: https://maxchadwick.xyz/blog/ Max's Article about the dev:console: https://maxchadwick.xyz/blog/n98-magerun2-dev-console-magento-cloud Bug Bounty: https://www.bugcrowd.com/bug-bounty-list/ -- Do YOU have an interesting experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain ecommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers. The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)

On this episode of Smash the Bug, the one and only Phillip Jackson, Chief Commerce Officer at Rightpoint and industry mentor is here to discuss the process of going from Junior to Master Developer. Phillip started as a developer and has certainly grown into an attractive role in the community! There are tons of golden nuggets in this episode so grab a seat! -- KEY TAKEAWAYS Phillip's story from being a young child, interested in computers and point-of-sale systems, to overcoming the odds and proving a lot of people wrong. He "fought and clawed" his way into the career he wanted and you can do it too. He "decided" that this was the career he wanted, and he had "the grit" to accomplish his goal, all while he didn't even understand what the potential was with computers. Writing code on a graphing calculator?! The connection between Phillip's initial determination and the quality of his work as a developer. Your mindset is key to transforming your career. *Phillip built his first website as payment for a new computer at Best Buy (he had never built a website before...) "We are at the cutting edge of things that are happening" in the ecommerce world and "we are constantly forging new ground" as developers. If you can be "comfortable being uncomfortable" you are going to do very well in this industry. *The 3 traits a developer needs in order to be excellent and have a positive impact on those around them. An important look at the content available at Future Commerce and why developers should occasionally consume content that is merchant-focused in order to blaze a better trail for their future work. Why is being a "lazy developer" a good thing sometimes? (yes, it's a trick question) *Phillip's bug-squashing story: "the way we were going to get paid is to hit some pretty unreasonable goals". The final comment from Phillip on how to become an irreplaceable developer: seek to inspire, instruct and build those around you up. If you focus on others, every project you touch will benefit from your involvement. -- Do YOU have an interesting experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)

On this episode of Smash the Bug, Joseph and Jesse talk about burnout, or more creatively put, "debugging the person". Sometimes the problems we face aren't with the code, but with ourselves, and we need to be open about these challenges so that we can help each other out. -- KEY TAKEAWAYS What does burnout actually look like and how can we identify when it is starting to become an issue? Can we possibly identify how many hours we are productive and set healthy boundaries for how much we are working? Drawing an arbitrary line in the sand isn't the answer. Some people work 12 hour days and love their work, while others hit their limit faster. Instead of being willing to step back and re-evaluate a project we are working on, we often look to just "get it done" instead of doing it right, which is often both a contributor to and a result of burnout. Beginning every day, week and project with a fine-tuned "big picture perspective" can help you stay on course. " One of the most demoralizing things I can do is throw code away" - Jesse Jesse confesses that he struggles a lot when the requirements for a project change. Starting with a "big picture perspective", making sure the requirements are well laid out in the first place, and preparing for those struggles help to prevent demoralizing emotional situations. Maybe sometimes you just need to clean the junk off of your glasses and you'll be as good as new! (joking, of course) After discussing burnout with a dentist, Jesse learned that the feeling of burnout that comes from doing repetitive and boring tasks can be remedied by seeking to learn new approaches and creative solutions for the project. Trying a new approach might take you longer, but it will help you to learn and explore. When you make creativity a priority, you can get into a routine of making mundane tasks seem fresh again. If you're struggling with burnout, email Joseph@swiftotter.com or Jesse@swiftotter.com. While everyone's situation is unique, we've most certainly been through similar challenges and would be happy to lend a listening ear! -- Do YOU have an interesting experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)

On this episode of Smash the Bug, TJ Gamble, Owner and CEO of Jamersan and the one and only Ecommerce Aholic on YouTube is here to discuss what makes a developer irreplaceable and how to think about your journey as an Ecommerce professional. -- KEY TAKEAWAYS Why is understanding the business of Ecommerce important for developers? How can agencies and their developers differentiate themselves in the marketplace as the best at building and maintaining sites, but also partnering with the merchant and educating them? Merchants need to know that you are their PARTNER, not just their emergency help in distress. After all, the more successful and profitable that merchant becomes, the more they need your agency in order to continue that growth process and increase their marketshare! Agencies want someone who doesn't have an ago, who can communicate well and employ a high level of emotional intelligence, and who shows a certain level of curiosity. Curiosity, in this industry, proves that a developer enjoys their work, wants to grow and improve, and is going to do a thorough job when given a difficult and/or obscure project. Curiosity can even be regarded as a dying quality in today's world, since we are constantly being influenced towards speed and objectivity, which naturally surpasses the ability to be curious. TJ believes that developers who are busy with side jobs and creative hobbies make for some of the best developers, and it all contributes to that idea of "curiosity". Good communication doesn't mean more communication, but mores being able to listen well and explain information in simple, clear terms. A good developer is able to communicate the same information to a merchant that he or she would be communicating to a manger or co-worker, in different ways that apply better to the person he is speaking to. Merchants don't want to work with a team that won't slow down and try to help them understand what is going on. You may not be an account manager or regularly interfacing with merchants, but learning to communicate effectively will serve you well in your career. It will certainly help you land that promotion or job that you've been working towards! -- Check out TJ Gamble / Ecommerce Aholic right here: https://www.youtube.com/c/eCommerceAholic/videos Do YOU have an interesting experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)

On this episode of Smash the Bug, Oscar Merida, Editor in Chief at php[architect] (phparch.com) is here to give us the "PHP pro tools" and remind us of some very useful resources we should be utilizing. The reality is that most developers only understand "the bare minimum" when it comes to PHP and there is a whole world of resources we can tap into to sharpen our knowledge. -- KEY TAKEAWAYS Underused features in PHP: For language syntax, there is a whole suite of functional array support that makes everything more efficient. The biggest complaint about these array functions - is it legitimate or just a misunderstanding? Developer experience vs actual functional quality. In a practical sense, what does a generator actually do and how can it optimize performance? Built-in developer web server - a quick way to stand up a local website to hack on ("quick and dirty dev environment"). SPL Library for working with files.   Best resources out there for PHP: "We know what the platform requires of us, but it's hard for us to look outside of that" php.net docs for practical day-to-day stuff. phptherightway.com - actual advice on how to work with databases (and more). Your local user group - listen and share! Go to php.ug to find a local group, or nomadphp.com to get involved. For helpful php tips and info, php[architect] (phparch.com) is a solid resource. It's an actual magazine that gets shipped to you, which will help you learn while getting away from your screen for a while. With your subscription, you'll gain access to the php[architect] discord community where you can ask questions and seek advice from others like yourself! -- Do YOU have an interesting experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers!   The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ (Theme music courtesy of Trending Audio)

On this episode of Smash the Bug, Chris Anderson, Tech Lead at BORN Group talks about a difficult integration project and how developers really should be learning how to use RabbitMQ! -- KEY TAKEAWAYS Using Magento in the "best way possible" and avoiding over-customization away from the Magento core. Why RabbitMQ isn't more widely used, and why you should start learning about it. When a client was trying to onboard multiple sites to Magento and have it communicate with their SSO, RabbitMQ was a uniquely perfect solution, which made Chris the "RabbitMQ guy" at his company after he learned how to use it specifically for this project. The importance of not letting yourself stop learning - you never know when you'll be faced with a task that could take 100 hours or 1 hour, depending on how wide your knowledge base is. A simple communication error can wreak havoc on an entire system, and being able to spot it requires the desire to learn more than you think you "need" to know. -- Do YOU have an interesting experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/

On this episode of Smash the Bug, Simon Frost gives us a sneak peek at his upcoming book on the Magento 2 admin panel, outlines his debugging process and explains what it takes to become a "power user"! -- KEY TAKEAWAYS Brief overview of Simon's upcoming book on the Magento 2 admin panel and why it will be useful for tons of developers. What it takes to become a "power user" and what that means. The importance of a "personal solutions log" and how to start one. Admin action logs as a great start to evidence gathering. "Created at" and "updated at" - approaching a bug like a forensic investigator. Why Simon tries to avoid firing up Xdebug until he knows it's time. Simon's "comparison technique". Skilled debugging is more than compiling a bunch of different tools, but more importantly, choosing the right one. "If everything seems to be working properly, challenge your assumptions".   -- Do YOU have an interesting experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/

On this episode of Smash the Bug, Joseph and Jesse talk about the importance of resetting even before a problem is solved, a deep Xdebug stack trace, and the importance of visualizing data in the right ways. -- KEY TAKEAWAYS Why are we on a dock at the lake? The importance of clearing your mind and resetting, even when deadlines are approaching. The light bulb moment (it's not what you think). Amending the discussion on "views" from Episode 8 Products not loading into a quote item , a deep Xdebug stack trace with a fix in under an hour, and the value of teamwork and collaboration. Price re-calculation/updating not happening (logging is so important!) and how visualizing data in the right ways gets you far. The ultimate value of becoming an amazing problem solver.   -- Do YOU have an interesting experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! Don't forget to check out SwiftOtter's brand new FREE COURSE, "Mastering Xdebug"! Go to SwiftOtter.com/MasteringXdebug to enroll! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/

On this episode of Smash the Bug, Robert Rand of JetRails discusses with Joseph the current state of the Magento (or Adobe Commerce) ecosystem after the Adobe Summit, and gives some helpful tips on agency communication. -- KEY TAKEAWAYS The current state of the Magento (Adobe Commerce) ecosystem after the Adobe Summit. Is open source going to go away now that Magento is Adobe Commerce and things are evolving? How do agencies often fail to keep merchants and how can these issues be avoided? What impact does a developer have on the merchant/agency relationship? What communication strategies are key to the merchant/agency relationship? -- Do YOU have an interesting experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/

On this episode of Smash the Bug, Joseph and Jesse (the dream team at SwiftOtter Solutions) talk about Hyva, BugUFO.com, and helpful strategies for debugging! -- KEY TAKEAWAYS -News & updates- What is Hyva and how can it be used in Magento 2? Is BugUFO.com going to be a valuable resource in addition to Stack Overflow?   -Experiences, Tips & Hacks- Over and over again, we think we know what we are working on and the kind of bug we are fixing, but the finished product is very different from what we set out to accomplish. Join filters and working with statuses. Is this a "plug the hole" situation or time to build a real fix? DocBlock issues and a broken URL When to go local and replicate outside the staging environment. Performance improvements: indexing and small vs big improvements -- Do YOU have an interesting experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/

On this episode of Smash the Bug, Dan Andrei talks about his experience dealing with a massive eCommerce store that wasn't functioning well on Magento 2.3.6! -- KEY TAKEAWAYS Client with massive store and too many customizable products for Magento 2.3.6. Product page was crashing. Comparing configurable products led to narrowing down the issue, finding what was crashing the page and then formulating an actionable solution (with multiple components). Keys for success: getting thrown in the deep end and having to learn things mostly on your own with some help from peers. Getting creative when coming up with solutions and thinking dynamically when complex issues come up. Tool of choice: PhpStorm Plugin of choice: Magicento Machine of choice: Linux (without a doubt!) -- Do YOU have an interesting (and 100% true) experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/

On this episode of Smash the Bug, Joseph and Jesse (the dream team at SwiftOtter Solutions) talk about news from the Adobe Summit and the many common production challenges that agencies experience. -- KEY TAKEAWAYS -News & Updates- Adobe Commerce Payments: is Adobe fixing a pain point by "componentizing" payments? Adobe Commerce Search: will it be a step up, or even be able to keep up with Algolia? The Art of eCommerce Debugging - July 1st is a date you will want to write down!   -Experiences, Tips & Hacks- Production problems: the monster in the closet. When things check out on local and dev, then we have a mystery bug. Lessons on what changes you should and shouldn't be making in the production stage. The better way to communicate apologies to clients and move forward after a big setback. -- Do YOU have an interesting experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers! The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/

On this episode of Smash the Bug, Sarvagya Pandey talks about his experience with MSI and the difficult hurdles he has crossed in his career! -- KEY TAKEAWAYS First challenge: Needed to map the project and define MSI, dive into the code and connect the merchant's needs with what Magento could offer. Second challenge: MSI wasn't in use in a lot of cases, so information was hard to find on stack exchanges and in community forums. "Regardless of what feature we are working, we have to see that the particular change should not break Magento or Magento functionality when we upgrade or make other changes". Get information and user flows, understand the Magento code, and use your tools. Understand all of the locations where the functionality is present - sometimes you can adjust the same function in multiple places. One of the most overlooked tools is the code itself - rehearsing what is happening and where it is happening. Perspective: "I want to learn as I work" Being embarrassed while reviewing your code from six months ago is GOOD and it means you're growing. Concept: the importance of community and always thinking like a junior developer. Gaining awareness is the starting point (credit to Ben Marks). -- Do YOU have an interesting (and 100% true) experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers. The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/  

On this episode of Smash the Bug, Joseph and Jesse (the dream team at SwiftOtter Solutions) talk about some big Magento/Adobe news that is going to have a potentially large impact on the community, developer efficiency hacks and how to become a better problem solver in your daily operations. -- KEY TAKEAWAYS -News & Updates- “Magento” to “Adobe Commerce”? How will this effect the community? “It's [Magento] been a daily part of my vocabulary for ten years” – Joseph How will open-source look? Will a name change effect anything operationally?   -Experiences, Tips & Hacks- Glitch in new feature – pull request links and code examination “It just reminded me of the importance of putting that issue number in”   Experienced developers need to think like young developers when they create “The time you invest now, or the little bit of thought that you invest now, will save you probably double that, if you ever need to touch that in the future”   Reviewing the tenses of commit messages “Describing the code as it is right now”   When products weren't saving, specifically through the API “This is where thoughtful debugging makes a huge difference”   Integer or string, product ID or SKU “We were not expecting SKUs”   Taking the time to create a full local replication and evaluate the big picture   Intro to the “TAD” debugging framework -- Do YOU have an interesting (and 100% true) experience with debugging? Send your story to logan@swiftotter.com and you might be our next podcast guest! This podcast exists to inspire, educate and entertain eCommerce developers who are serious about improving their skills and advancing their careers!   The Art of Ecommerce Debugging, your complete guide to becoming an expert debugger, is NOW AVAILABLE at SwiftOtter.com! Claim your copy right here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/ The information contained in this book is your pathway to becoming an incredible developer. In fact, veteran developers from all over the world are reporting that they learned valuable new tricks from this book. Your ROI on this inexpensive tool will be immediate and through the roof! Get your copy here: https://swiftotter.com/art-of-debugging#/