So long, and thanks for all the fish - The farewell tour

On November 27 and 28, I went to the XP Days Benelux conference. This blog post is a short recap of all the things I learned.

In this first post, I’m sharing my notes and reflections from the session “So Long, and thanks for all the fish - The farewell tour" by Ron Eringa, Paul Kuijten, and Dajo Breddels. The session explored the question of whether the Agile movement has run its course: been there, done that, got the T-shirt. With the Agile label losing some of its shine, the facilitators invited us to properly say goodbye to what no longer serves us, and to salvage the practices and principles still worth keeping.

The goal of the session was simple but important: take stock. Is Agile dead? And if not, how do we move forward?

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

Colonel Chris Hadfield has spent decades training as an astronaut and has logged nearly 4000 hours in space. During this time he has broken into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposed of a live snake while piloting a plane, and been temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft. The secret to Col. Hadfield’s success-and survival-is an unconventional philosophy he learned at NASA: prepare for the worst-and enjoy every moment of it.

Stop Copy-Pasting Your Resumé (and Everything Else)

You just got asked for an updated resumé. Again. So you open that folder—one in Google Drive, another buried in Downloads, and maybe another one in your email. There’s a version from three jobs ago, one you tweaked last year… and they’re all a mess.

But what if your resumé lived in source control? Versioned. Clean. Written in plain text. Ready to export to PDF in seconds.

That same approach works for more than just your own documents. When I’m hiring developers, I use AsciiDoc to generate technical assessments too—polished, structured PDFs without fiddling in Word. And once it’s generated, it’s automatically uploaded to the Confluence page for our hiring process, so recruiters and interviewers always get the latest version—without needing to ask.

In this post, I’ll show you how I use AsciiDoc to create reusable documents—like resumés, cover letters, and candidate assessments—that compile into beautiful, consistent PDFs in seconds. No CI/CD pipeline required - but you can absolutely add one later to automate PDF generation and publishing. Just structured content, a simple setup, and the joy of never formatting by hand again.

Testing GraphQL with Specifications: A Deep Dive with Reqnroll

GraphQL has been around since 2012, yet many developers haven’t had the chance to work with it. Personally, I’ve been using GraphQL on and off for several years, both in personal and professional projects. Recently, I’ve been diving deeper into it again—and I’ve fallen in love with it all over.

While implementing a few queries and mutations, I started to wonder: how could I effectively test my GraphQL implementation? Specifically, how could I send queries and mutations with a GraphQL client directly from my tests to ensure everything works as expected?

After some experimentation, I found a solution I’m excited to share: combining specifications with Reqnroll, the .NET WebApplicationFactory, and the Strawberry Shake GraphQL client to test a Hot Chocolate GraphQL server. This approach not only works seamlessly but also results in clean, readable specifications.

In this article, I’ll guide you through the process of setting up these tests, allowing you to test your own GraphQL server with clarity and confidence. Let’s get started!

DevOpsDays Eindhoven 2023

It was on my radar last year, but I decided not to go, but to go to Techorama instead. But, after hearing good stories about the first edition of the DevOpsDays Eindhoven, I decided to skip Techorama and go to the DevOpsDays Eindhoven 2023.

In this post, I will explain what the DevOpsDays are, and share some of my learnings. I hope you will enjoy it and, maybe, I might inspire you to join me next year!