What is “Rubber Ducking?” The phrase was made famous by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas in the book The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. A book, by the way, which is required reading for all coders. In fact, it is time I reread it. You may already be familiar with this term, but in [...]
Before you submit your next job posting, keep the end result in mind. If you are in the market for talented, interesting people who are accountable for producing quality work, you may wish to give your job listing a second look. Haacked.com discussed the Art of the Job Post today. The article shares where the [...]
Exception handling is extremely important, isn’t it? When it comes to testing, troubleshooting and maintenance it is paramount. Exception handling is definitely highlighted on every developers list of application technical requirements. So, why don’t all applications have proper exception handling? I have a few ideas. The first and most likely reason is most developers (no [...]
Code generation is not a new concept. It has been around since the first lazy, err, smart coder realized that Hello World was the foundation of Hello World Too. I’m sure they figured they had written the code twice already and the third iteration is undoubtedly around the corner so they felt somewhat obligated to [...]
A handful of the 40 coders in my development group are recent college graduates. They have less than two years of professional coding experience under their belts and for this reason alone I consider them juniors. They are all very talented and some day they are going to be absolutely amazing at what they do, [...]
Unquestionably, effective communication is a key ingredient to delivering a successful project. I could rant on and on about avoidable day-to-day issues which exist only because of miscommunication, under-communication or (gasp!) over-communication, but I will save this for another day. Instead, today’s lesson hones in on the primary vehicle for poor communication — email. I [...]
“I appreciate the offer, but I simply don’t want one,” I said. “I know it will completely take over my life. I will wind up working around the clock and that’s not healthy. I need to turn work off some time. Truly, thanks, but no thanks…” As if I had never said a word, a [...]