From Relic to Relevance: COBOL’s 88-Level Fields for Modern Coders

Luke Zeisset COBOL, Modernization, Programming, Tutorial Leave a Comment

Remember when blockchain was going to change everything? Now AI is the trend dominating every conversation—but some of the most effective programming ideas have been around for decades. This post examines one of COBOL’s lesser-known yet highly practical features: the 88-level field. Far more than a simple boolean, 88-level fields provide a clear, maintainable way to describe data conditions, enforce business rules, and streamline initialization. Through real-world examples, you’ll see how this feature can reduce complexity, eliminate hard-coded values, and make logic more expressive—demonstrating that sometimes proven tools from “old” languages still have lessons worth applying today.

Writing Java Code and Unit Tests Faster with GitHub Copilot Header image - explains the blog post intent - Learn how to use GitHub Copilot to generate Java code and unit tests—using a real mortgage calculator example—with practical tips on retaining quality code using AI-assisted development tools.

Writing Java Code and Unit Tests Faster with GitHub Copilot

Jonny Hackett AI, Articles, Java, Testing Leave a Comment

In this post, we’ll explore how to use GitHub Copilot to generate Java code and unit tests with minimal manual input. Using a real-world example—a mortgage calculator service—you’ll see how Copilot can help write both the core logic and the corresponding unit tests. Whether you’re new to AI-assisted development or curious about Copilot’s capabilities in a Java environment, this tutorial will give you practical insight into how it works—and where human oversight still matters.

Zellij The Impressions of a Casual tmux User

Zellij: The Impressions of a Casual tmux User

Jake Everhart Articles, Development Technologies & Tools, Programming Leave a Comment

Let’s get this out of the way: I love tmux. Gaining the ability to multi-task within the terminal was a monumental productivity boost for me, and if you’ve used it in the past, you probably have similar stories about how it leveled up your workflow. It’s fast, it’s well-supported, and it has a plethora of features you can invoke with just a few keystrokes.

…and personally, I can only remember about a dozen of them.

Boost Your Automated Testing with Cucumber and Selenium.

Boost Your Automated Testing with Cucumber and Selenium

Samuel Seidl Articles, Testing Leave a Comment

As discussed in a previous blog post, Selenium is a popular choice for automation testing, and when you pair it with Cucumber, you unlock even more benefits. By writing test cases in Cucumber’s human-readable format, teams can improve clarity, boost maintainability, and make collaboration easier — even for non-technical stakeholders. In this post, I’ll walk you through how to integrate Cucumber with Selenium to create efficient, effective tests that set your team up for success.

Implementing GitHub OAuth with NextAuth.js

Implementing GitHub OAuth with NextAuth.js

Bob Palmer Articles, JavaScript, Programming, Security Leave a Comment

In my last post, “Introduction to Web Apps with Next.js”, we went through the steps of setting up a new Next.js project, customizing a landing page, and implementing a very simple web application. In this post, we’ll implement an Open Authentication (OAuth) based Single Sign-On (SSO) API within Next.js using NextAuth.js. We’ll be using GitHub as our provider, but the steps here are very similar for other platforms, such as Google or Discord. This will allow us to place portions of our website behind a login screen, restricting access to certain content or APIs for anonymous visitors.