I’m not the kind of person who is easily annoyed, but there is one thing that gets into my skin - all the time. Inconsistently structured code. I hate arbitrary indentation, spacing and line breaks. It is close to impossible for me to assimilate a piece of sloppy code without first running it through a [...]
I’m an impatient person, of the kind that are comfortable with making quick decisions on loose grounds, but prepared to change when more information gets available. This attitude has served me well, but also put me in trouble when important decisions were made too hastily. That’s why I always use The Rule of Three nowadays.
I [...]
As a programmer you are the ultimate software development tool, and like any tool you need regular care to stay effective. If you don’t invest enough in self-improvement you’ll end up useless, with a blunt sword. I’ve seen many programmers wielding blunt swords, unable to fight their ways out of old habits and paradigms. Don’t [...]
I’ve come across many different types of developers during my nearly two decades in the business. In my experience there are two developer character type extremes: the ones that always seek and settle with the simplest solution, and the ones that seek the perfect solution, perfect in terms of efficiency, readability or code elegance.
Developers from [...]
It’s a well known fact that we regularly introduce errors with the code we write. Chances are slim to get it right on the first try. If we do, the risk is great that changing requirements and murdering deadlines will mess things up later on.
It’s also well known that the cost of failure increases with [...]
A post on Jeff Atwood’s excellent blog inspired me to write up the fourth element of my Tools of The Effective Developer series. This time I’ll handle the habit of taking the customer’s view.
Jeff states that the primary responsibility of a software developer is not to write code, it’s to solve the customer’s problem. (Otherwise, [...]
This is the third post in my Tools of The Effective Developer series. The other two discussed the habit of keeping personal logs, and the habit of daily planning. Now the time has come to the habit of programming by intention.
Please note that I’m not speaking of intentional programming, which by the way introduces some [...]
In the first post of this series I stated that the best tools, the ones that make developers efficient, are the habits that they possess. The habit I referred to in that post was the habit of keeping personal logs. In this post I will tell you about another habit that helps me in my [...]
A comment on a recent post of mine made me think more about the distinction between a Software Programmer and a Software Developer. To me there is a subtle, but important difference. Let me give you my definition:
A Software Programmer is someone who really knows the environment he is programming. He knows everything there is [...]
When people talk about tools in the context of software development, they usually refer to stuff like Integrated Development Editors, Automatic Build Systems, Testing Frameworks, Documentation Extractors, or other useful applications that makes their lives as developers easier. Those are all great and productive tools, but they are not the most valuable ones. What really [...]
