Does Bad Writing Reflect Poor Programming Skills?
Writing is a communication skill. And they say that communication skills and the other soft skills are what programmers need today. Effective developers don’t work alone. They work with others in a team. And a team member needs to communicate with the other team members to be effective. It’s like playing football. No one person […]
Seven Truths of Good Code
What is “good” code? Some define it as “beautiful.” Some equate it with experience. Some with cleverness. Some can’t tell you what it is. Others know it when they see it. For me, “good” means maintainable. Good code, yes, has grace and beauty. But what makes it worthwhile is that it’s easy to work with. […]
Quick and Dirty May Be Dirty, But Is It Quick?
I’ve been meaning for some time to write about how slow “quick and dirty” is, how misnamed the term is, how misguided are the hoards of managers (many of them former and current software developers) who embrace “quick and dirty” as a fast solution to pressing problems, as though it could ever deliver an actual […]
Fix for w3mir With Latest URI.pm
What brought this all on was that one of my computers died. So I updated software on another computer, and discovered I needed a fix. It’s a fix for a recent improvement in a Perl library, URI::file::Base, that coupled with behavior in URI::file::Unix happens to invoke different behavior in URI::URL, which… Basically, w3mir no longer […]
Dead Fish and Other Things People Wear
Lidor Wyssocky at The Mindset writes about “The Emperor’s New Clothes Syndrome.” This reminded me of a talk Tim Lister gave earlier this year at the Boston SPIN. “The problem is that although we know exactly what doesn’t work right and how it should be fixed, most of us will never say anything,” Lidor writes.
Please Don’t Share Your Bodily Fluids With the Rest of the System
Have you ever been here? Refactoring old code, seeing new code that partially de-factors it, and taking out my frustrations in code comments. The old comment for a struct declaration: // This structure will be generated // and stay with each connection The new comment:
Top Eight Reasons to Abandon SourceSafe
How many of us work in Microsoft shops? I’m ashamed to admit that I do. When I took the job, I thought the benefits of working in a new domain with new technologies would outweigh the fact that I had to use Microsoft tools and program for Windows. Well, the benefits are real. The costs […]
When the Best Tool Isn’t, and Why a Growing Team Doesn’t Care
Kathy Sierra excellent post on When the “best tool for the job”… isn’t misses an important point. It’s not that she missed the point so much as she just didn’t go into it. But I think it deserves going into. Many software developers become very attached to their favorite programming languages, methodologies, practices, and so […]
Five Things Software Teams Can Learn From Build-A-Bear Workshop About Customer Relations
I never would have bought this book for myself. I won it in a drawing at InBubbleWrap.com. I’m not sure what made me enter the drawing. Maybe it was, Eh, it sounds moderately interesting, and it’s free. Or maybe it’s that I have a soft, cuddly spot in my heart for Build-a-Bear Workshop. And as […]