Signs and portents for 2024
It's an end-of-year tradition here at Instil that the Head of Learning assumes a Janus-like pose and looks forward to the new year by reviewing the one that's drawing to...
4 January 2024
The People versus Tailwind - the case for and against Tailwind
TailwindCSS has been around for a while now (v0.1 was released back in 2017) and remains a contentious choice for developing CSS, with many arguing for and against it's utility-based...
8 November 2023
Signs and portents for 2022
In this post, Head of Learning Garth Gilmour, will make predictions for the tech industry in 2022
14 December 2021
The Edutainment Problem
In this post Garth Gilmour ponders the problem of 'Edutainment' and whether or not trainers need to be entertainers.
24 September 2021
OODA Considered Harmful
Thoughts on why the OODA loop as applied to agile delivery is flawed or should even be considered harmful.
5 February 2021
The Truth of the 10X Developer
If you thought the 10X Developer concept was just a myth, think again. In this article Garth Gilmour convinces you otherwise
13 January 2021
The Perils of Advocacy
Developer advocacy is an extremely rewarding job but is it all sunshine and meadows or is there a darker flip side to this role?
4 January 2021
Should Developers be Ignorant?
Garth discusses his belief that junior developers should be given a safe space of blissful ignorance to play in, and only slowly exposed to the cruel realities of business. What...
7 December 2020
Signs and portents for 2021
Each December, our Head of Learning reflects on emerging trends, and makes some foolish predictions for the year to come. Read on to see that the future holds...
1 December 2020
Is YAML Developer my next job title?
A brief exploration of CloudFormation from a developer's perspective.
23 June 2020
10 reasons why WebStorm is better than VS Code
Ok, ok, I know the title is contentious but don't start with me. I've been locked up for over 9 weeks now due to COVID-19, home schooling my kids, doing...
18 May 2020
The Delusions Of Developers
Lessons from the Dot-com Bust we need to relearn
10 May 2020
Is The Classroom Dead?
With the pandemic in full-swing and ways of working changing, will any of us ever set foot in a classroom again?
1 May 2020
Static Types vs Dynamic Types. Stop fighting and make my life easier already
A look at how both statically and dynamically typed languages have pros and cons and how we should identify the benefits and choose languages that provide the best of both...
17 October 2019
Why Strong Static Typing Is Your Friend
Last week my dear colleague Ryan wrote a blog post in praise of dynamic types. I would ask you not to judge him too harshly for this. It is a...
9 October 2019
Is 'Effective Kotlin' Effective?
‘Effective Kotlin' follows in the long line of renowned Effective programming books. But is it a worthy addition to the series?’
8 October 2019
Static types won't save us from bad code
Modern programming languages can be categorised in many ways, but the most common approach is to slice them by how they handle Types. Is using strong static typing a prerequisite...
3 October 2019
One Principle To Rule Them All?
The SOLID principles of software design provide guidelines on how we can make our code more readable, maintainable and extensible. They are universally accepted maxims that all engineers should...
12 September 2019
A Taste of Things to Come
As another busy year of training draws to a close it's traditional that I stick my head above the parapet and make some predictions for the New Year. For what...
7 December 2018
Leaders don't give orders
How leading agile software teams is not about one person giving orders
1 July 2016
Reading the Tea Leaves
Reading the tea leaves - predicting what's in store for 2016 and beyond
27 November 2015
Why do an IT Degree?
Opinion piece on whether an IT degree is important or essential in today's market
5 August 2014
Those That Can't
Opinion piece on the skills required to teach and do in software
30 May 2014
The Philosophy of Agility
Opinion piece on the relevancy of philosophy in the world of agile software
23 May 2014
You Keep Using That Word
Opinion piece on the state of test driven development and unit testing