We, as programmers, are constantly being asked 'How long will it take'?
And you know, the situation is almost always like this:
The requirements are unclear. Nobody has done an in depth analysis of all the implications.
The new feature will…
After watching National Geographic's MegaStructures series, I was surprised how fast large projects are completed. Once the preliminary work (design, specifications, etc.) is done on paper, the realization itself of huge projects takes just a few…
I hope this isn't too general of a question; I could really use some seasoned advice.
I am newly employed as the sole "SW Engineer" in a fairly small shop of scientists who have spent the last 10-20 years cobbling together a vast code base. (It was…
I am a developer in a 5-member team and I believe our project is headed for disaster. I'll describe why in a moment, but my question is: how should I behave?
The deadline is in 1.5 months, and I feel no matter what we do, this project will fail.…
I'm working on a website that will allow users to log in using OAuth credentials from the likes of Twitter, Google, etc. To do this, I have to register with these various providers and get a super-secret API key that I have to protect with pledges…
I find myself pondering over this question from time to time, again and again. I want to do things the right way: to write clean, understandable and correct code that is easy to maintain. However, what I end up doing is writing patch upon a patch;…
I have been working as a software developer for many years now. It has been my experience that projects get more complex and unmaintainable as more developers get involved in the development of the product.
It seems that software at a certain stage…
It's not really a technical question, but there are several other questions here about source control and best practice.
The company I work for (which will remain anonymous) uses a network share to host its source code and released code. It's the…
Are different version naming conventions suited to different projects? What do you use and why?
Personally, I prefer a build number in hexadecimal (e.g 11BCF), this should be incremented very regularly. And then for customers a simple 3 digit…
What are the worst false economies (that is ways of saving money that ultimately cost more than they save) prevalent in the software industry and how do you combat them?
I'm never sure when a project is far enough along to first commit to source control. I tend to put off committing until the project is 'framework-complete,' and I primarily commit features from then on. (I haven't done any personal projects large…
My friend is a project manager for a software company. The most frustrating thing for him is that his engineers frequently leave their jobs. The company works hard to recruit new engineers, transfer projects, and keep a stable quality product. When…
At a previous employment, a project manager (PM) wasn't satisfied with the delivery time of the code on a project I was on. I was told by my project lead that that the PM was considering having me sign a contract to lock-in my time estimates I gave…
I'm a junior developer that is given the ability to help shape my team's processes if I can justify the change, and if it helps the team get work done. This is new for me as my past companies more or less had rigidly defined processes that came from…
I always try to follow the DRY principle strictly at work; every time I've repeated code out of laziness it bites back later when I need to maintain that code in two places.
But often I write small methods (maybe 10 - 15 lines of code) that need to…
