Dickson's Blog

Pop quizzes are a fun way to discover knowledge gaps. I'm experimenting with this format to distill my software engineering experience and hopefully provide something both informative and entertaining! While AI code generation tools are now accessible to everyone, experienced engineers maintain a critical advantage: they know how to direct AI to write testable code and verify it properly. Here's a pop quiz on software testing to evaluate your engineering acumen: Question 1: Why do applications with global state present challenges for testing? (Hint: Think about test isolation and predictability.) Question 2: What is a "flaky test" and what are the most common factors that cause this testing challenge? (Hint: It's about inconsistent results.) Question 3: Your test suite shows all green, yet users still encounter critical bugs in production. What are the most common testing blind spots? (Hint: Are your tests seeing the whole picture and validating it thoroughly enou...

Claude Code brings the power of Claude AI directly into your terminal. Now that Claude Max plans include Claude Code usage (as of May 1, 2025), you gain access to this powerful assistant without direct API cost concerns (within plan limits). While the claude.ai web app is great for conversations, Claude Code shines by allowing you to extend its capabilities with custom scripts tailored to your specific workflows. This blog post explores how to configure Claude Code to recognize and run your own scripts, using Google Drive integration as an example. Disclaimers This is an unofficial blog post (my personal blog) and is not endorsed by Anthropic or Claude Code. It is only meant to explore how far anyone can take Claude Code. USE THIS DISCUSSION AT YOUR OWN RISK. NEVER run code without reviewing every single line. There may be multiple ways to achieve the same goal. (e.g. MCP, which I will cover in another post.) What's discussed here is just one way, not the only way or best way....