I read an article named The Future of Software Development by Alex Iskold. He predicts a future where only a few high quality software engineers will be able to serve the world’s need of computer systems.
With a bit of discipline and a ton of passion, high quality engineers are able to put together systems [...]
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 [...]
I’m back from my three week vacation!
I had a great time, but as suspected I wasn’t able to stay away from computers. In the warm evenings, just for fun, I started to implement a ray tracer in the D Programming Language.
I have been looking for a suitable project that would give me a chance to [...]
In a comment to my previous post AC wonders how I automate acceptance testing. He considers that as being done by real testers. Well, he’s absolutely right. I expressed myself a bit sloppy, so let me use this post to explain what I meant to say.
Acceptance testing is done by the customer to make sure [...]
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 [...]
I stumbled upon this really interesting site. It implements a new kind of site navigation that is really cool. It’s actually a research project that tried to create a user interface which requires no clicking.
For me it was a mind-tumbling experience, but I quickly got a hang of it. I even liked it to some [...]
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, [...]
I have a confession to make: I used to be addicted to debugging. Yes, it’s true. When I got hooked - damn you Delphi - I wasn’t able to see the dark side, the demonic side of the debugger. It lured me into thinking only quick fixes, and I lost track of the big picture. [...]
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 [...]
