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 […]

Why I Hate Microsoft

Back in the Windows 95 days, I was a huge Microsoft proponent. When Netscape sicked the U.S. DoJ on them, I was on their side. What happened since then? I’m a Linux user. That is to say, all of my home computers run Linux. The one at work doesn’t, but that’s a long story, which […]

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 […]