Week 402 - Interesting links

Credit Union Mobile Android app

As we feared there has been precious little public news about the progress of the Credit Union Expansion Programme over the last couple of years. However, I recently came across a couple of ABCUL blog posts which suggested that a couple of credit unions are live with this mobile banking app. There is also an equivalent iPhone app.

From what I’ve read, it looks as if the subsidiary of ABCUL, Cornerstone Mutual Services, have got some kind of Agency Banking deal in place which means that each credit union can have its own sort code and gives them access to things like Faster Payments, Direct Debits, etc. I’m glad that there are now finally some signs of progress, although I really wish they were more transparent about it all. — JM

When TDD Doesn’t Matter

I found this article by Kent Beck really interesting. It reinforced to me how important it is to understand why you are using a particular practice like test-driven development and not just cargo-cult it. — JM

Everyone Should Be Feeling the Customer’s Pain

The idea of having everyone in your team do a stint on customer support is a really powerful one. It was something that our former client, FutureLearn, really embraced and I certainly found my days on support very illuminating. — JM

Asking good questions is hard (but worth it)

This article by Julia Evans recognises that asking good questions is a skill in itself and is full of great advice on how to do it well. — JM

Testing XPath in Google Chrome and Firefox

I had no idea that XPath selectors are built-in to Chrome’s Developer Tools console - you just need to construct expressions like this: $x("//div[@class='date']"). Neat! — JM