A pile of folded newspapers on a desktop

Monday Links: Going solo, making friends and AutoMapper

11 things I wish I knew before I went Independent

A good read for all of us wanting to go solo. The author answers the question: “how you made the decision to go independent and how you got started?”. Among other things: find a niche, learn about sales and marketing, and talk to your customers… Definitively we don’t have to be the “I do anything for anyone” kind of guys. Read full article

“If you don’t want to be just another pair of hands, the first thing you need to figure out is: Who do you want to serve?”

How to build remote teams properly

I remember my first day at one past job. I spent like one week going to the office and doing nothing. I couldn’t even touch a computer until someone, who was on vacation, showed me all the security policies.

A clear onboarding is much more important these days of work-from-home than before. Have a standardized onboarding process and assign a buddy to the newcomers. Onboarding is only one step to building remote teams. Read full article

vintage cafe scene
Let's have a coffee and be friends...Photo by Les Anderson on Unsplash

This Is How To Make Friends As An Adult

Let’s switch gears for this one. Speaking of being adults and making friends…“being ‘close’ means a text message twice a year.” That got me reading. Reconnect with old friends, listen to people and ask them to tell more, check in every two weeks, and join a group. Read full article

Why I Decided to Ditch AutoMapper

This is an oldie. I have a love-and-hate relationship with AutoMapper. I can’t debug and easily find where the mappings are. Maybe, because in one of my client’s projects we use AutoMapper when we shouldn’t.

I liked that the AutoMapper’s author replied in the comments. He wrote, “use AutoMapper if you can Auto-Map 75% or more in a given mapping. If not, don’t use it. Just map things manually.” Read full article

Voilà! Another Monday Links, a bit diverse this time. How is the onboarding process at your job? Do you use AutoMapper? If not, what do you use instead? Stay tuned to the upcoming Monday Links.

In the meantime, check my Unit Testing 101 series. Don’t miss the previous Monday Links on Better programming, flags, and C# and Daily Meetings, Estimates, and Challenges.