Questions tagged [methodology]

117 questions
142
votes
87 answers

How to become a "faster" programmer?

My last job evaluation included just one weak point: timeliness. I'm already aware of some things I can do to improve this but what I'm looking for are some more. Does anyone have tips or advice on what they do to increase the speed of their output…
Nick Gotch
  • 213
  • 2
  • 6
  • 12
121
votes
12 answers

Why are multiple programming languages used in the development of one product or piece of software?

I am a recent grad student aiming to start my Master's in Computer Science. I have come across multiple open source projects that really intrigue me and encourage me to contribute to them (CloudStack, OpenStack, moby, and Kubernetes to name a few).…
94
votes
27 answers

Why do people use programming books?

I find that when someone asks what is the best way to learn how to program, people usually provide them with references to a bunch texts written by various authors. However I don't believe many people at all learn to program from books. I find that…
Alex Hope O'Connor
  • 384
  • 2
  • 7
  • 11
87
votes
14 answers

Is Agile the new micromanagement?

This question has been cooking in my head for a while so I wanted to ask those who are following agile/scrum practices in their development environments. My company has finally ventured into incorporating agile practices and has started out with a…
Smith James
  • 587
  • 1
  • 5
  • 8
79
votes
3 answers

What are DRY, KISS, SOLID, etc. classified as?

Is something like DRY a design pattern, a methodology, or something in between? They do not have specific implementations that could neccessarily be demonstrated(even if you can easily demonstrate a case NOT using something like KISS... see The…
Morgan Herlocker
  • 12,722
  • 8
  • 47
  • 78
68
votes
9 answers

Can Agile/Scrum be used by 1 or 2 developers?

Everything I've been reading and researching up to this point describes how Agile/Scrum works great with teams of about 4 to 6 members, maybe even more. In my current shop, we have about 8 developers or so, but given the nature of the volume of…
Dillie-O
  • 1,085
  • 1
  • 9
  • 11
54
votes
14 answers

Effective Ways to Introduce Agile into the Workplace?

In your experience (anecdotal or otherwise), what are some effective ways to introduce Agile into a non-Agile organization or company? UPDATED: Can anyone speak to cases where you tried to introduce Agile but you were "shot down"? Also, do you now…
Troy DeMonbreun
  • 408
  • 2
  • 5
  • 8
46
votes
6 answers

Methodology for documenting existing code base

I work as part of a team on an existing application that has no inline documentation, nor does it have technical documentation. As I've been working on various bug reports on the application, I've written a sort of breadcrumb trail for myself - bug…
George Stocker
  • 6,388
  • 2
  • 31
  • 55
40
votes
10 answers

Where do you draw the line for your perfectionism?

Perfectionism may be good and bad when programming. When and where do you draw the line when you are problem solving? When do you decide when a solution is overkill, too general or simply too futuristic? Please comment if the question is unclear.
Amir Rezaei
  • 10,938
  • 6
  • 61
  • 86
38
votes
8 answers

How to cope with different development styles (top-down vs. bottom-up) in a team?

Say you've just started working in a very small team on a {currently relatively small, though hopefully bigger later} project. Note that this is an actual project intended to be used by other developers in the real world, not some academic project…
user541686
  • 8,074
  • 8
  • 38
  • 49
29
votes
6 answers

Does Scrum create additional overhead for projects where requirements don't change?

I'm reading the Scrum - A Pocket Guide by Gunther Verheyen and it says: The Chaos report of 2011 by the Standish Group marks a turning point. Extensive research was done in comparing traditional projects with projects that used Agile methods. The…
Artem Malchenko
  • 401
  • 4
  • 6
28
votes
14 answers

Avoid becomming a "Theoretician" programmer

I have found this article in several posts on SO. I find myself falling into the 6th archetype; the "Theoretician". It defines the "Theoretician" as: The Theoretician knows everything there is to know about programming. He or she can spend four…
Kevin Hicks
  • 381
  • 2
  • 6
28
votes
8 answers

Methodology: Writing unit tests for another developer

I was thinking about software development and writing unit tests. I got following idea: Let's assume we have pairs of developers. Each pair is responsible for a part of the code. One from the pair implements a feature (writing code) and the second…
franiis
  • 413
  • 1
  • 4
  • 10
24
votes
4 answers

How to use unit tests when using BDD?

I am trying to understand BDD. I've read some articles and as I understood BDD is "the next step" from TDD. I say that because I find both to be very similar, and as I could read in this article, BDD was born as an improvement from TDD. Great, I…
JSBach
  • 1,365
  • 2
  • 14
  • 27
22
votes
7 answers

How does the Scrum Master participate in Daily Stand-Ups?

We have a professional Scrum Master consultant [*] who recently joined our project. Unfortunately, we don't know her name (she never introduced herself to us, she just came in one day and said "we are having a daily stand-up"), and she doesn't seem…
user109170
  • 229
  • 1
  • 2
  • 4
1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8