A colleague of mine thinks learning touch typing is a waste of time. He even suggests that it might be a disadvantage for a programmer to be able to type fast. While typing slowly, he reasons, one has time to reflect upon the work at hand. Well, I don’t share his point of view. I [...]
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 [...]
I support the initiative of Jeff Atwood who declared this day to be the “Support Your Favorite Small Software Vendor Day“.
This is a paid review.
I’m not a graphic designer. In fact I stink at everything visual, so design work like layout, images, icons and logos are better handled by somebody else. Unfortunately this is not always possible, and I’m sometimes forced to produce crappy stuff on my own.
Therefore I got quite excited when asked to [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
