We spoke with Rebecca Parsons, our Chief Technology Officer, Ange Ferguson, Chief Transformation Officer, Jessie Jie Xia, Managing Director for Southeast Asia, and Joanna Parke, Chief Talent Officer. Between them they’ve been at Thoughtworks for 65 years and held pretty much every role you can think of. Today they’re all in leadership roles, but took time out to chat to…
1 Oct 2020
The changing demands of the digital era requires new organizational capabilities and a different style of leadership.
30 Sept 2020
Want to know how to find net cash flow? Check out our helpful guide.
Revenue recognition helps to identify at what point “cash” becomes “revenue.”
AUM is the total value of investments an entity manages on behalf of clients.
Find out everything you need to know about penetration pricing strategies.
The Enterprise Investment Scheme is a UK government venture capital scheme.
Announcing Playwright for Python: Reliable end-to-end testing for the web
Microsoft Python EngineeringAutomated end-to-end tests are a powerful tool for your team to ship faster and with more confidence. End-to-end tests automate UI interactions and can validate the functionality of your apps. To this end, we are announcing Playwright for Python in preview today. Playwright enables developers and testers to write reliable end-to-end tests. The post Announcing Playwright for Python: Reliable end-to-end…
UK MOBOX customers can pay via GoCardless for a frictionless experience.
Be sure to check the timelapse in the gallery below. Created: September 2020 Size: 52x27cm Paper: 200gsm Pens: Sakura Gelly Roll 0.8mm pen
29 Sept 2020
Working outside the office is no longer a trend or an office perk — it’s our new reality. And make no mistake – cyberattacks have not slowed down while so many people have begun working remotely outside the protections of the corporate office network. Enabling off-network endpoint protection for users is no longer optional – […] The post Secure remote…
A few years ago, I released a lightweight alternative to Bootstrap affectionately named Shoelace. Shoelace was small and fast because of its minimal design and pure CSS approach to styling. It used CSS custom properties extensively to enable customizations, even when loaded via CDN — something you can’t do with Sass. At the time, CSS custom properties were still pretty…
A path to environmentally conscious computing
28 Sept 2020
We’re glibly searching for counterexamples to the Riemann Hypothesis, to trick you into learning about software engineering principles. In the first two articles we configured a testing framework and showed how to hide implementation choices behind an interface. Next, we’ll improve the algorithm’s core routine. As before, I’ll link to specific git commits in the final code repository to show…
The formula for net sales can provide a clearer picture of your firm’s revenue.
Get the lowdown on the importance of the marginal cost formula.
Revenue run rate is a great way to predict future financial performance.
The cost of sales refers to the direct costs incurred when manufacturing goods.
How many types of assets in accounting are there? Find out here.
Understand the impact of the new data protection laws for small businesses.
Over the past few years, many engineering teams have switched their default git branch name from master to a different, potentially less offensive term. I’m all for choosing to name your default branch whatever you’d like, but not having a universal default branch name can complicate some automation. So how can we detect the default branch name for a git…
Private label credit cards let retailers offer more lenient terms to customers.
I recently worked with a team of software developers who were quite confident with the level of testing they had in place on their project. They had a robust set of unit tests, and extensive code coverage reports to match. They were thoughtful about separating out their unit tests (performed in isolation with the tactical use of mocks and stubs)…
24 Sept 2020
PubNub Documentation overhauls the developer experience, making it easy and intuitive for developers to learn how to build with PubNub
PubNub Documentation overhauls the developer experience, making it easy and intuitive for developers to learn how to build with PubNub
One thing I love about JavaScript is that there are many ways to accomplish the same task, one such example being creating functions. There are several patterns for functions; one of the last you see used is the new Function method: /* new Function(arg1, arg2 (...), body) */ const myFunction = new Function('users', 'salary', 'return users * salary'); What if…
Named Leaders and High Performers in G2 Grid Fall 2020 reports
23 Sept 2020
We are happy to announce that the September 2020 release of the Python Extension for Visual Studio Code is here! This was a short release where we addressed total of 34 issues, and it includes support for colorization and auto import improvements with Pylance. Keep on reading to learn more! The post Python in Visual Studio Code – September 2020…
GitHub’s mobile applications have used GraphQL to power new features. We’ve now been able to move faster and get more done with less hassle and no over-fetching. We were able to turn to the open source community and use Apollo for iOS and Android. By doing so, we moved at warp-speed. We also minimized ongoing engineering effort on what is…
The final part of my Life series is still in the works but I need to interrupt that series with some exciting news. The new programming language I have been working on for the last year or so has just … Continue reading →
Get to grips with payment facilitators vs. payment processors, right here.
Learn how to make a P&L statement with our profit and loss template for the UK.
Explore the pros and cons of fair value accounting with GoCardless.
Product bundling is a strategy for grouping goods and selling them together.
Fraud can lead to monetary losses, unsettled employees, and reputational damage
How I used Datadog to become a better sailor.
We live in a year of about 350,000 amateur epidemiologists and I have no desire to join that “club”. But I read something about COVID-19 deaths that I thought was interesting and wanted to see if I could replicated it through data. Basically the claim is that Sweden had an exceptionally “good” year in 2019 in terms of influenza deaths…
22 Sept 2020
If you’re like most businesses, you’ve already got a secure web gateway (SWG) deployed. In fact, 84% of businesses rely on their secure web gateway to protect their organization from malware infections, enforce corporate and regulatory policies, filter content, and more. As organizations move to the cloud, traditional appliance-based SWGs have been strained with more […] The post The secure…
OpenAI has agreed to license GPT-3 to Microsoft for their own products and services.
21 Sept 2020
ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ (Namaskāra)! This is not a post on fintech, or even technology for that matter. This is the story of a product of tenacity, selflessness, and passion; a product that will transcend and outlive most technology we know of. This is the story of a massive dictionary that will become the window to a language spoken by tens of millions…
I hate slow websites. They are annoying to use and frustrating to work on. But what does it mean to be “slow”? It used to be waiting for document load. Then waiting for page ready. But with so many asynchronous patterns in use today, how do we even define what “slow” is? The W3C has been working on this with…
I really appreciate the amount of different <input> elements we’ve received over the past decade. These elements don’t just bring a new semantic advantage, but also provide UI helpers, which in many cases are useful. In a recent case, I found a UI element not useful: the x (clear) icon in <input type="search" /> elements. In most cases that input…
Learn more about the difference between debtors and creditors, right here.
RTGS is a funds transfer system enabling instant money/securities transfers.
Get the inside track on the current ratio formula, right here.
Liquidity ratio formulas indicate whether you can pay off your debts.
Dropping support for older Node.js versions, to improve security and performance
As part of our efforts to improve our APIs, we’re introducing updates on how we paginate over tracks. This only affects developers and apps…
18 Sept 2020
Explore the difference between invoices and receipts, right here.
Defending your online security is crucial. Check out our secure payment tips.
Supplier relationship management is a key part of your procurement cycle.
17 Sept 2020
See the most prominent trends driving the growth of the subscription economy.
Late payment reminder emails are a valuable tool for chasing up unpaid invoices.
The order to cash cycle covers every business process related to making a sale.
Get the inside track on how to reprice your SaaS products and services.
Learn more about the rise of challenger banks in the UK.
Could free trials work for you? Explore SaaS free trial best practices.
Explore the interest coverage ratio formula, different variations, and more.
16 Sept 2020
Your app is slow. It does not spark joy. This post will use memory allocation profiling tools to discover performance hotspots, even when they're coming from inside a library. We will use this technique with a real-world application to identify a piece of optimizable code in Active Record that ultimately leads to a patch with […] The post The Life-Changing…
It is funny, I would never say I would be sad to deprecate a software project. Especially a project boilerplate. But I just merged the deprecation notice, and I do feel down a little. I created Marvin about four years ago for my own needs. Since then it grew, became internal project at Work&CoFun fact, our website is made on…
15 Sept 2020
Edit: If you are in a desperate situation, or getting rejected multiple days, please call your State Assemblymember. Staffers in the Legislature have access to additional resources and can help you get the assistance you need from EDD. The California EDD Paid Family Leave phone tree is like a choose your own adventure book, where […]
84.7% of cyberattacks involve phishing. In such a scenario, it becomes very important to understand the various ways a phishing attack could occur. Phishing URLs are commonly found on cloud providers. This article will take you through why cloud providers are being used increasingly for phishing campaigns and what pattern an attack on these sites […] The post Why cloud…
Set the current user accounts profile photo (displayed on the login UI) using a local JPG image. dscl . delete "${HOME}" JPEGPhoto dscl . delete "${HOME}" Picture sudo dscl . create "${HOME}" Picture "${PWD}/avatar.jpg" Replace Time Machine with Volume on the menu bar defaults write com.apple.systemuiserver menuExtras -array \ "/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/AirPort.menu" \ "/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Volume.menu" \ "/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Battery.menu"
Since version 4.10, OCaml offers a new best-fit memory allocator alongside its existing default, the next-fit allocator. At Jane Street, we've seen a big improvement after switching over to the new allocator. This post isn't about how the new allocator works. For that, the best source is these notes from a talk by its author. Instead, this post is about…
Collaborating for success: An effective approach for fintechs to partner with large institutions
Thoughtworks InsightsIn our previous article we asked the question whether banks should “create or collaborate” to address a customer need or market opportunity. Even once the decision is made to collaborate, that's only half the battle. Large financial services organizations and fintechs working together is not new, however, the record of success is not great.
14 Sept 2020
Moving shipping containers is heavy work. Moving a traditional industry into the digital age is a different kind of heavy job. Software development agency GNAR took on the challenge and built an ops management platform for RMS Intermodal, one of the largest rail yard operators in the U.S. Their IoT solution gave RMS a data-driven […] The post How to…
Last time we implemented what looked like Gosper’s algorithm and got a disappointing result; though the quadtree data structure is elegant and the recursive algorithm is simple, and even though we memoize every operation, the time performance is on par … Continue reading →
Pylance introduces five new features that enable type magic for Python developers
Microsoft Python EngineeringIn last week’s Pylance update we introduced Semantic colorization, and thank you for all feedback! It was exciting for the team to bring this new feature to you. With the latest release of Pylance (version 2020.9.4) we are excited to introduce features that bring us closer to the goal of helping developers write correct Python […] The post Pylance introduces…
Explore our distinctive competence definition for businesses, right here.
Budgets are goals, forecasts are predictions. Read on for more information.
The Promise API changed the game in JavaScript. We went from abusing setTimeouts and settling for synchronous operations to doing everything possible to leverage this new async API. Let’s check out a handful of awesome Promise API tricks! Cancel a fetch Request One problem we instantly complained about with promises was not being able to cancel them. A simple promiseInstance.cancel()…
While California is suffocating due to strong wildfires, PurpleAir is monitoring the air quality.
Eons ago, one of us (Nag) was involved with a large consumer products company that wanted to launch a new brand of salt. Naturally, they embarked on a gigantic market research (MR) project. The team carried out focus groups across the length and breadth of India, including little Padrauna in Uttar Pradesh, India.
11 Sept 2020
In the last article we set up pytest for a simple application that computes divisor sums $ \sigma(n)$ and tries to disprove the Riemann Hypothesis. In this post we’ll show how to extend the application as we add a database dependency. The database stores the computed sums so we can analyze them after our application finishes. As in the previous…
Some mathy-programmy people tell me they want to test their code, but struggle to get set up with a testing framework. I suspect it’s due to a mix of: There are too many choices with a blank slate. Making slightly wrong choices early on causes things to fail in unexpected ways. I suspect the same concerns apply to general project…
What are liquid assets in accounting? Get the inside track with our guide.
Read about the benefits of the triple bottom line with our simple guide.
Find out everything you need to know about the OPEX formula, right here.
Corporate social responsibility can make your business socially accountable.
What did the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, accomplish? Read on
A friend of mine asked for a color version of Black Holes. Again, it is so hard to take a good photo of these colors. They are nicer and more vivid in person. Created: September 2020 Size: 42x30cm Paper: Fabriano Black Black 300gsm Pens: Gelly Roll Moonlight
10 Sept 2020
Experts across the industry shared their fintech advice for small businesses.
All right, we have our quad data structure, we know how to get and set individual elements, and we know how to display it. We’ve deduplicated it using memoization. How do we step it forward one tick? (Code for this … Continue reading →
I love JavaScript, it’s my favorite programming language, but I love dipping into other languages because they offer a new perspective on coding paradigms. There’ve been syntax additions to JavaScript that I’ve seen I found interesting (think ?? in optional chaining) and now we get more — logical assignment operators. Let’s check out how they can be used! ||= Or-Or-Equals…
I was asked a very interesting question on Twitter just now: @lukaseder quick q: in pg can I have a composite foreign key where one value is a constant… or do I have to store the constant in the table? constraint foreign key (foo_id, ‘bar_subtype’) references foo(foo_id,foo_type) ? — Look! The Emperor is NAKED V⃝ … Continue reading Having “constant”…
Every project is different in many regards and the quality management aspect is not an exception. Most of the time the project would have some type of restrictions and a set of priorities you would need to work on. Different project needs could be illustrated with the following examples: You’re a project manager and you want to know the maturity…
9 Sept 2020
Sometimes people choose to work for one company over another for reasons related to the work environment, for example what the company does, and whether the other employees create a place that's pleasant to work at. But a major factor is compensation. If Company A and Company B are largely comparable, but Company A offers […]
Xero's Ben Johnson suggests considerations for choosing who to partner with.
The collaboration problem: overwriting each other changes In traditional online applications, when you make a modification to the state of the object you work on, the change propagates to a central server that holds the “truth”. The server registers the change and sends back a confirmation that the change was indeed applied. The problem happens when Alice and Bob try…
8 Sept 2020
Episode 34 will be delayed again — sorry! — because once again the time I had set aside for writing this weekend got consumed by a real-world task that could not wait. (I will try for Thursday of this week.) … Continue reading →
Even will drive adoption of GoCardless to enterprise organisations globally.
Remote work isn’t just the future – it’s here and now. With most, if not all, of your users working from home, you need to deliver the same level of protection for the sensitive, business-critical data on their laptops and mobile devices as if they were working in the office. Cybercrime hasn’t slowed down during […] The post Protect remote…
Enterprise digital wallets are a quick win for businesses and their customers
7 Sept 2020
5 Sept 2020
WooCommerce returns an HTTP 401 error if you are not using HTTPS or the Authorization header is not parsed correctly by your webserver. Receiving HTTP 401 during authentication WooCommerce provides an extensive REST API with which you can automate your WordPress WooCommerce shop. WooCommerce uses a Consumer Key and Consumer […] The post Fixing HTTP 401 Unauthorized when calling WooCommerce’s…
4 Sept 2020
I finally got my home network in a place where I am happy with it. I wanted to share my setup and what I learned about it. There has never been a better time to set up a great home network; there are several new tools that have made this easier and better than in […]
8x8 offers GoCardless payments to even more customers with the addition of ACH debit in the US
GoCardless8x8 already reaping the rewards of their new payment system.
Blender 2.90 introduced support for Intel Embree, reducing Cycles render times up to 10 times on production scenes.
We’ve applied reinforcement learning from human feedback to train language models that are better at summarization.