DEV Community: Peter Witham

Not everything needs fancy

Peter Witham — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 14:42:18 +0000

I am wrapping up development and preparing to release my new mobile app SubRadar. The time arrived to put a Web site together.

Now I could have gone two ways

Be the engineer in me and over work the problem with lots of good things that I'll never really need
Keep it simple as a product site and move on

Yep, I chose number 2 this time around. All it needs is a simple HTML + CSS site to show the app and provide a contact form.

This also gave me an opportunity to embrace AI for getting the mundane layout done and then tweak by hand. So that's what I did using Claude Code. Something I've come to appreciate for sanity checking my work when things go wrong.

The end result I think was pleasing and after a couple of days of refining the code and making it look the way I wanted, I now have a product site that just needs some videos worked.

The lesson here is that I needed this done, I have the skills to do it but recognize that my time is better spent focused on getting the app done rather than the tasks I've done a 1000 times before.

Something for us all to think about as we love/hate AI and those tasks we'd rather not repeat over and over.

Take a look, I'm happy with it SubRadar.app

What would you build a Web app with today?

Peter Witham — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 17:38:19 +0000

So, if you were to start a new Web app today that needed the following

Frontend
Backend with DB
User registration
Secure to take payments for the service

What would you use? Yes, I know this is some what open ended and maybe a loaded question. I've only used React in the past few years.

But I want to try and recreate one of my mobile native apps on the Web and I'm a little out of date as I have not built one in a couple of years at least.

I am also considering trying a no-code solution since this feels like a good opportunity to explore them further.

Thanks for advice, suggestions.

The Power of Grooming: Streamlining Your Workflow for Maximum Productivity

Peter Witham — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 15:48:05 +0000

I want to discuss something related to software engineering that can be applied to various topics — project grooming.

Let me give you a few examples.

But hold on, there are no brushes involved.

In software development, when following a process called Scrum, we engage in grooming. Essentially, it involves reviewing all the work that needs to be done.

This approach is much more productive than doing all the preparation right before you start.

New work constantly comes in from different sources, such as finding issues, receiving requests, or implementing new features. The details aren't crucial here.

The idea behind grooming is that, at regular intervals (maybe once a week or so), you sit down with your team (or by yourself) and go through everything to ensure everything is up to date.

Each item should have the latest notes and the correct status. Essentially, you do whatever you can to move things forward or ensure all the necessary information is there.

For example, if you had a meeting and took notes, you add those notes to the item.

The purpose of this practice is that, by doing it regularly, you can pick up any item and start working on it at any time. The thing will have all the latest information and be ready to go.

I believe this approach can be applied to almost anything, and I use it in all my projects.

Some of you might think, "Isn't this overkill for side projects or personal endeavors? It seems like managing the work of the work." But here's the thing: you're already doing it. You might not realize it.

However, more often than not, you're doing it too late. You're doing it when you sit down to start something.

For example, you have 15 minutes to write a blog post. If you spend the first 5 or 10 minutes figuring out what to write about, you'll only have 5 minutes for the actual writing. I hope this example helps you understand the concept.

The same applies to other activities, like photography. If you spend the first 20 minutes of an hour-long session preparing your equipment, formatting cards, and connecting cables, you're not taking pictures; you're just prepping or grooming.

Suppose you do the grooming ahead of time and make it a regular habit (which is quick and easy to do, by the way). In that case, you'll find that when you say, "I'm going to write a blog post," or "I'm going to paint a picture," or "I'm going to take some photographs," or "I'm going to work on some software bugs," you'll be able to sit down, grab an item, and start working on it.

This approach is much more productive than doing all the preparation right before you start.

Plus, if you have to do all the prep work at the beginning, it can be draining and prevent you from engaging in the creative process.

So, please take a moment to think about it. If you have any opinions or suggestions or believe this is either silly, pointless or very beneficial and want to share your experience, I'd love to talk to you about it. Consider that an invitation to come on my Podcasts.

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Don't forget the leaks

Peter Witham — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 14:56:47 +0000

I had spent the best part of a week on and off trying to fix an issue I was having with SpriteKit, one of the gaming frameworks on the Apple platforms.

This was the last bug between development and shipping the 1.0 release, but it was a big one.

I was getting repeated audio and animations where I should only be seeing and hearing them once. After all, how many times does a player have to die to indicate they dead?…once right?

I had re-written, re-architected the code numerous times and was convinced that I had everything right each time. There are only so many ways to change an image and play a sound after all.

Through out the process I had been live streaming the development at https://compileswift.com/livestream like I always do. And many more talented folks than I in the chatroom had suggested things that we tried with no solution in sight.

Then, someone whom I hold in high regard for SpriteKit said they would be happy to take a look at the whole codebase for me. After much defeat and imposter syndrome, I gave in and handed over the code base.

After a while they got back to me and said “Hey, I think you have a leak and retainer in the game scene”.

Now, I had looked at this, but did not see what they had seen. Maybe due to lack of observation on my part, or maybe code blindness had set in.

But sure enough, they were right. Two lines of code changes later everything started to fit into place and away it went happily just taking down the player once.

So there are two lessons here I want to share.

Always take help when it’s offered
Don’t forget to check beyond the code structure and see if something unexpected or unplanned is happening outside of the logic it’s self.

For now, I am sending the last version to TestFlight and hoping for a 1.0 release in the coming week or two.

Why you should not fear the developer technical interview

Peter Witham — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 13:19:41 +0000

Developer technical interview. Three words cause a heart to skip a beat for any developer, regardless of experience or level. But I am here to tell you it should not be that way. These interviews are a good thing. I hope this episode starts a conversation.

Technical interviews are considered a normal part of the developer interview. If you have ever had one or know someone that has, there are plenty of stories of how they did not go well and sound like something to be feared. In this episode, I want to reframe how to look at and handle these interviews.

There is far more to it than just how good the code is. It's about seeing how you approach a problem and whether you might be a good fit for a team. The code is only part of the review, in my opinion.

I apologize as I'm not familiar with how to post a transistor.fm embed (iframe) so here's the link

https://share.transistor.fm/s/03275db2

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Apple’s headset tells us something about their vision

Peter Witham — Sat, 10 Jun 2023 05:34:58 +0000

OK, the pun is unintentional but maybe accurate. The Apple developer conference WWDC23 has given us a clear path of how Apple sees things going forward concerning Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

Namely, augmented is their plan, which makes more sense. It is easier for users to embrace the familiar while learning new paradigms as we advance.

Think about it. We went from button phones to touch screens. Keyboards to voice control. And now, desktop to augmented reality.

In my opinion, this stands a better chance of adoption beyond gaming than virtual reality does.

The problem with virtual reality is that you have to create everything. Augment means making the parts you need and letting reality do the rest.

Now this does not mean I believe the Apple headset will succeed or fail, this is just my take on how Apple sees that future playing out, and I think it makes a lot of sense.

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Why you need to promote yourself as a developer

Peter Witham — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 05:38:13 +0000

I want to talk about promoting yourself. Why I think you should do that, and some suggestions on how you should do it. Now, let's start with why you should do it.

It's very unlikely that you are going to just magically be discovered one day. Now, there could be any number of reasons you want that to happen. Maybe you don't. In which case, great, you should not read this post.

You need to be discovered and you need to be the one to make that happen. Why does that matter? In my case, and I suspect many others, it has been my reputation and being out there in public that has really progressed my career from one job to the next.

Okay. I acknowledge there may be a certain amount of luck there. But if I had not been out there promoting myself, and I don't mean promoting in some arrogant way, I mean promoting as if you were a product, because, at the end of the day, you are your own product, your skills are your product.

Now, if I hadn't been out there doing it, It would've been a lot harder. I would have to have applied to a lot of job positions. I'm here to tell you now all of the jobs that I've had and all the people that I've worked with have been because they came to me.

I think it is been maybe 20 years or so, something like that since I last. Applied for a position without them coming to me first. I don't mean that in some big-headed way. I mean, to use that to emphasize to you that because of a lot of the things that I put out there helped make that happen.

People have recommended me, or they came across my work and wanted to start a conversation with me. These are the reasons that I think you need to go ahead and promote yourself because it is just very rare that you will be discovered. I'm not going to say it won't happen, but if nobody knows where to find you or you are not on the internet posting something somewhere it will be a lot harder.

Okay. Now let's get into the details.

First of all, you should network now. Yes, I know. We all stop and go, oh gosh networking. But networking is different these days than it used to be. Now let me say, first of all, you cannot beat in-person networking. That face-to-face where people get to see you, get to know you, they can pick up on your intention.

A lot of these things don't come across online, so where possible, find yourself a group to join. I remember years ago, I went to a Swift group for a couple of meetings and then they disbanded, which was a real shame because they were nice folks. It was just great to hang out somewhere, have a cup of coffee and talk about whatever anyone wanted to talk about, it was just fantastic.

So in person. Is the number one option. Of course, COVID has made that a lot more difficult. Things are getting better, but you still have to be careful.

If you cannot do it in person or you don't feel like that's the thing for you. Okay.

There are so many places you can go, including creating your own Internet home. I'll get into that a little later on when I talk about some creative ways to promote yourself.

You have to accept that it's going to be very hard at first, okay? Especially if like a lot of developers, you are introverted. It's gonna be a problem. At the end of the day, it's something you will have to get used to.

The other thing is if you are just starting out and you don't have a history that will make it even harder. That's something you can solve. How do you solve that?

There is no magic answer. You don't solve it overnight. What you do to start solving it is start doing what I'm suggesting today.

You start it today. The sooner you start doing these things, the sooner it's out there and you start building that legacy.

Always remember you are promoting yourself as if you're a product. Be polite to people, even if they're not polite to you, right?

It's not as painful as you imagine it's going to be. Remember, most folks out there want you to succeed and they will be nice to you, and they're gonna want to help you, and they're gonna want to help promote you. Just as much as you should want to help them.

That's another thing, be known for helping people.

Don't underestimate yourself, you probably know a lot more than you realize, and I guarantee you, there are things you know that other people don't and they would be interested in them. Putting yourself out there and putting content out will again help your reputation and help you promote yourself and people will remember you for it.

This can lead to so many different things. I have seen this lead to invites, like myself and other folks onto podcasts, conferences, talks, and so much more. It can also lead to the possibility that people will pay you for what you know.

What are some of the creative ways to start promoting yourself?

I've got a few suggestions that I'm gonna talk about, and I think these are some great ways to get started.

First of all, number one is blog posts. Believe it or not, contrary to what the internet wants you to think. blogging is still very much worth it, we all read them when trying to solve problems or research.

I recommend a two-fold approach. First, you should have a place that is your home on the Internet, something that you control the fate of. So when the next social network fails, you do not have to do anything to save your content.

This is a huge deal. People will get to know where to find you, make this the place that everything else jumps off from. One place to tell folks about regardless of the content type.

This content can also be placed elsewhere referencing back to your home as being the original canonical post place. This enables you to take advantage of an existing site. For example, dev.to which is a great developer community.

The other option, be a guest blogger for someone else. That's happened to me. I've been invited to write on other people's sites.

Discord is another option, I have created DevClub, a Discord server with some friends of mine, and we are having a blast in there. You can click that link to join it.

It is all about a positive attitude. There's no judgment of how good someone is or bullying, we have a zero-tolerance policy, and so far, we have never had to use it. We have folks from all walks of life, experience, and skill level.

Along with Discord, there are plenty of other places like Slack, Facebook, and many other networks with groups you can try out to find one that works for you.

So think about all these. Yes, they all take time, but I think it's crucial that you put time aside to do this. It is imperative that people get to know you in these, communities. Don't just take from these communities, give back.

Another option, get yourself on a podcast or other media. If you want to come on the UIBuzz podcast, we can make that happen. I am open to any development topics and you are more than welcome.

Reach out to me at PeterWitham.com/contact. I would dearly love to talk with folks.

The last one is an example that I do once a week, a live stream. I have a live stream on Twitch. You can go to twitch.tv/Compile swift.

I have a wonderful chat room full of nice friendly and fun folks.
Peter Witham on his live streams

Yes, it was terrifying when I first started because I'm sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, everybody is judging what I'm doing, and I'm doing terribly.

But you know what? After a while, you realize that's not what this is about. If I base the success of my streaming on how much good code and good work I've got done, it would be a failure, but. The critical part is when I realized it's about the community. It's about the folks in the chatroom, the folks watching.

At first, you are not going to have anyone watching. Don't panic! Everyone starts out that way. Act as if people are watching. Yes, it's weird to talk to a camera when you know there's no one watching. Do it anyway because eventually, there will be folks. Remember, some people prefer to watch replays because they are in different time zones.

The point of a live stream is not only to put out the content but to interact with people. That's what I love, and we have such a great laugh in my chatroom.

On whatever your streaming platform of choice, interact with folks, watch other people's streams, get involved in their chat rooms, and be a part of their community.

I hope this has been helpful. I wanted to give you some ideas you can use today.

I hope this inspires you. Be inspired to go do this. Give it a try. If you do any of these things, Reach out to me. I would love to visit your content.

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Learn how things work behind the curtain. Understand the magic.

Peter Witham — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 09:03:20 +0000

We are blessed to be working at a time when we have so many great tools, add-ons, and services to help us get our work done.

But with that convenience comes some ignorance.

I know that sounds harsh. Read on.

It is too easy to use a tool or let something take care of fixing issues, templated code, or command line Kung foo to make building something faster without knowing what it is doing or how it works.

Take time to learn what just happened and why. There are a couple of reasons to do this.

You never know when a tool might stop working. Maybe it broke in a software upgrade, became obsolete, not maintained, and will no longer work in the future.
Never trust the code you did not write. Yes, this is tough, but you never know what might be waiting to bite you.

A classic example that I have come across so many times is people that use a tool for Git and never learn how to do even just basic commands from a terminal.

Why should you bother?

Because you might have to SSH to a machine that does not have the same tools you are used to. Likely, a server will only have the tools it needs to perform tasks. That would be good practice, by the way.

So you need to know how to perform Git tasks from the terminal and do so confidently without screwing something up, especially in a production environment. If you were on one of my teams, I’d expect you to be able to do this.

So next time you sit down and use the tools of choice, take a few minutes to understand what they are doing. Then, next time, try and do it without the convenient tool and see if you learned what you need to take those skills to the next level and maybe impress teammates along the way.

Need another reason?

Sure, think about this one, this will happen one day if you ever interview for a position.

They will likely not let you use the tool or have it available during technical interviews, so they know that you at least understand how things work.

I bet that one just got your attention!

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I love helping new developers

Peter Witham — Sun, 23 Oct 2022 19:07:03 +0000

There, I said it.

I love spending time helping and taking the journey with new developers. I'll never understand why so many seasoned 'pros' complain about having to show new developers things.

To me, it's time well spent helping someone get started. And having fun along the way celebrating that excitement and sense of adventure that we all had when we first started the journey.

If I can help someone avoid some of the pitfalls I made along the way then even better, others should be able to learn from the pain and frustration I suffered. If it wasn't for folks helping me out, I might never of made it.

So in many ways, I owe the pay it forward and do so with joy and a passion to get the next generation on the path to success.

Just a Sunday thought, thanks for reading.

Developer life and mental health

Peter Witham — Sun, 23 Oct 2022 18:09:06 +0000

Thank you, everyone, for being part of the Podcast and helping it reach the 100th episode. I am so glad we get to share this.

In this episode, I sit down with someone I respect and admire, Jay Wilson. We talk about developer life and how we need to stay balanced and open with those around us to maintain a healthy relationship with ourselves and others.

Topics include

Never put work before health and personal life
Always find someone to talk to if you feel like things are overwhelming you and making you stressed/unhappy
A good manager will
Keep your work balanced
Unblock you
Protect your time
Fight for you
Always having fun with what you’re doing. Life is too short not to
Jay has a new job starting soon - iOS full time

Guest Links

Twitter: @heyjaywilson
Twitch: @mwilson_codes
Instagram: @mwilson_codes
Website: cctplus.dev
YouTube video of interviewing

Don’t give up on the first complex problem

Peter Witham — Sun, 11 Sep 2022 06:42:32 +0000

Giving up when hitting the first complex problem is a sign you will probably not make it as a software developer. Tough love and a solution inside.

Yes I know that is harsh, but I think it's only right to at least start a conversation about this topic. I have seen many promising developers drop out because they did not find a way to reframe a problem into a positive 'time to learn and advance' sign post.

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Podcast – Generating random game events

Peter Witham — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 06:59:30 +0000

Podcast Episode - Random game events can bring players a sense of freshness and discovery. Here's my solution to finding the right balance.

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