NordTech - our first tech meetup in Berlin

Tests are not useless!

With Pavlo Mikhailidi

Fuelled by a recent encounter with an anti-tester, our Senior PHP Developer, Pavlo, set out to prove that testing is a necessary practice for all developers—not just QA. He explained that good testing saves time and headaches and can even double as documentation. Increasingly complex codebase requires proper care, and modifying one part can break several others. In these cases, testing is your go-to remedy.

He went on to cover the attributes of good testing, shared below, and to debate the trade-offs between bad testing and no testing. Finally, Pavlo passed along some recommended resources for upping your testing game: Unit Testing Principles, Practices, and Patterns, Test-driven Development by Example, and The Art of Unit Testing.

Here are the attributes of a good test that he shared:

• It protects against regression

• It’s resistant to refactoring

• You get fast feedback

• The test is maintainable

Watch the full recording of Pavlo’s presentation.

Scrum sucks

With Oleksii Ustenko

Our Senior Android Developer, Oleksii, explored how Scrum is often misunderstood and misused. All-in-all, he actually likes Scrum but understands why people might grumble about the rigidness of the structure. What’s important to remember is that Scrum should be people-centric at its core: humans working together to create value for other humans. And each ceremony exists to drive that goal forward. Like many things in life, Scrum works best when motivated individuals have the trust, support, and understanding they need to get the job done. And Scrum, understandably, goes wrong when management or bureaucratic processes steal ownership away from teams.

He concludes that Scrum is not the silver bullet some of us want it to be. If something isn’t working, each person involved is responsible for speaking up and proactively suggesting improvements—respectfully. Scrum worked well for the use it was invented for, but every team is different. Take the time to understand the context behind why certain ceremonies exist, learn from past mistakes, and find the process that fits your team best.

Watch the full recording of Oleksii’s presentation.

Securing your API using Cryptography

With Dovydas Bespalovas

In this security deep-dive, Dovydas, our Guild Tech Lead, laid out the basics with different types of cryptography algorithms and functions: Hashing, Encryption, Digital signatures, Key derivation function, and Key exchange. He then explained the evolution of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to Transport Layer Security (TLS) and how it’s used and certified. Going one step further, Dovydas got into the differences between ‘Authorization’ and ‘Authentication’ and shared a step-by-step example of how both information security processes can be put into practice. After that, he concluded that such necessary security measures come with extra work and extra complexity.

Watch the full recording of Dovydas’ presentation.

Future tech events in Berlin

If you’re interested in learning more, join our future NordTech events live in Berlin or watch them online. Follow us on meetup.com to stay up to date with upcoming knowledge sharing, networking, and other future events at Nord Security.