Introducing 8th Light Austin
I am thrilled to announce that 8th Light has acquired Lunar Collective, a software consultancy based in Austin, Texas. This acquisition—along with WisdomGroup, Adorable, and Madriska—presents yet...
View ArticleThe Iowa Caucus App and the Challenge of 'Going Live'
Deploying an application is hard. Deploying an application that has only one real chance at success, coinciding with a live event that can’t be repeated, is really hard! It’s almost like the difference...
View ArticleHow can your business move from operating on spreadsheets to custom software?...
This is part one of a two-part post examining the use case for moving your business from spreadsheets to custom software. This blog helps you identify whether you're at an operational inflection point,...
View ArticleHow can you move from a business operating on spreadsheets to custom...
This is part two of a two-part post examining the use case for moving your business from spreadsheets to custom software. Part 1 helps you identify whether you're at an operational inflection point,...
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8th Light Invests in Premium Remote Software Development Company, One World...
8th Light is pleased to announce its relationship with a new remote software development company, One World Coders. Former 8th Light COO Doug Bradbury has launched the Africa-based company with...
View ArticleMitigating the Risks of Small Development Teams
For many small businesses, one dedicated developer is enough. The application is small enough that one person can reasonably maintain all of the different components and deliver fixes and features fast...
View ArticleHow 8th Light is Responding to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Parker Palmer describes the tension between the darkness of what we see today and what we know is possible in the world as the tragic gap. Today we all stand in that gap watching so much darkness...
View Article8LU Livestreams: A new way to stay connected and keep learning
As many of our teams have moved to working fully remotely, we are looking for ways to fill in the learning content and community connections we’re used to in our meetups and conferences. 8th Light is...
View ArticleFrom Web Dev to Android
Most of my software experience has been in developing web applications that use various front-end frameworks. By now I've come to expect these frameworks to help me do certain things. These include...
View ArticleReducing Operational Expenses by Going Serverless with AWS
This post may apply to you if you want to reduce infrastructure expenses. Though, I bet everyone identifies with that.But how about this: you're paying for a marketing website/some CMS server, and you...
View Article8th Light is Partnering With Health Worker Data Alliance To Support Frontline...
As health care professionals work on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, they’re at risk of more than just contracting the virus. Witnessing and working to provide for patients every day—often...
View ArticleDifficult decisions during the pandemic
On Monday, 8th Light made the painful decision to do a reduction in force. The world around us has caused us to think conservatively about our future growth. We decided that to ensure the mission of...
View ArticleProblems When Scaling Fails–and Solutions
Things were working fine a few days ago... and then traffic spiked for whatever reason and the system could not handle it. Everything is slow or just not working. Maybe deploying new code to your...
View ArticleExState: Database-backed statecharts for Elixir and Ecto
On a recent project, working with Elixir, Ecto, and Phoenix, we were encountering difficulty modeling and managing a complex business workflow. This is a fairly typical problem to have on any...
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On Anxiety, Uncertainty, and Flow
I have encountered this graph twice in my time at 8th Light: once during my onboarding at the beginning of my apprenticeship, and again when training to mentor an apprentice of my own. I think about it...
View ArticleHow E. Coli Taught Me To Work Smarter
In my previous post, I talked a little bit about how, if I can't think of a good solution from the onset, I sometimes start to doubt my ability to solve a problem at all.I observed this not too long...
View ArticleA maintainable, scalable front-end
If you're like me, you have a love-hate relationship with styling.Probably because along with HTML, these languages seem to force you to enact poor development habits. You'd like to keep things DRY,...
View ArticleImproving Agile Process at Scale
Recently, in preparation to deliver agile training for a shipment tracking company, I was struck by how many of the comments I heard from stakeholders sounded familiar to issues I have heard in...
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Your Values are the Rules You Break
Recently, I encountered a conversation about "clean code." This was in the context of an engineering organization trying to improve the quality of its output. Because I am a grumpy old contrarian, my...
View ArticleDare to be Good Enough—You'll be Happier for it
As I sit down to write, I noticed a tug at the back of my neck—a tension forming as I begin editing my words obsessively. It's a habit of writing characterized by my attempts at achieving the best...
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