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In some libraries I've seen, a lot of emphasis is put into change of ownership of pointers, like for example a class method that allocates and returns a pointer to an object while relinquishing its ownership to the caller. My question is: how would you design if you had to code something with the constraint that no poi...
Everybody knows that people that have prejudices against certain programming languages. Especially PHP seems to suffer from problems of its past and some other things (like loose types) and is often called a non-serious programming language that should not be used for professional applications. In that special case PHP...
Allow me to add details: I work at an institutional place with many coders, testers, QA analysts, product owners, etc. and here is something that bugs me: We have been able to sell crappy (albeit pretty functional) software for over a decade. It has many features and the product is competitive, but there are a some ser...
Is anybody aware of a database that consists of businesses, addresses and GPS location information, preferably searchable by city at a minimum? I have an application in mind that I'd like to develop and would like to know if someone is doing this for free or cheap in possibly a web service or similar open format.
Paraphrase of an email I sent to a colleague I noticed a problem with System A. I have determined that it is not caused by X. I suspect that it is being caused by Y. (since you are in charge of Y) Can you please take a look at it? (The part in parentheses was not included in my email because this colleag...
We have a asp.net MVC web service framework for serving out xml/json for peoples Get requests but are struggling to figure out the best way (fast, easy, trivial for users coding with javascript or OO languages) to authenticate users. It's not that our data is sensitive or anything, we just want users to register so we...
In Source Insight, global variable show up in a different colour. Is there a way to accomplish this in vi (or any other free editor)?
[This is a cross-post originally posted by me in SO. I think the question is more appropriate here.] I was going through the adwords API and came across their rate sheet - http://code.google.com/apis/adwords/docs/ratesheet.html . They charge $0.25 per 1000 API units and under the 'Operation Costs' sections list the cos...
Folks, I have two separate classes. One of them makes http requests/receives response to/from a server and the second one converts received JSON objects into my models (separate classes). I'm thinking it would be an idea to include this class for data converting as an inner class of my first class. Wouldn't my first cl...
I work in a team with wide range of expertise and experience. I have been trying to introduce weekly knowledge sharing sessions. Sessions of 30-60 min length where everybody gets a chance to present something and talk about it. This will contribute in improving presentational and language skills. However, the team is ...
While I've never delivered anything using Smalltalk, my brief time playing with it has definitely left its mark. The only way to describe the experience is MVC the way it was meant to be. Essentially, all the heavy lifting for your application is done in the business objects (or domain model if you are so inclined). ...
In a previous question here on programmers, the OpenCalais system has been referenced as a solution. Has anyone used OpenCalais? Can you identify pros and cons of the system ?
I'm wondering if the Javadoc is using on real projects, what your experience says about it?
This debate has cropped up on a mailing list for a project I'm involved in. Unfortunately we're quite a small bunch at the moment, so I want to ask a wider audience. We're writing a C library (for arbitrary precision arithmetic) and are investigating build systems. Currently we have a bash script in desperate need of w...
I live in Australia, and I am currently looking at some of the remote job offerings in countries like US/UK. However I have very little understanding of what needs to be done to report that kind of income - i.e. do I need to get an ABN, pay payroll tax myself etc. If you had any experience in this area I would like you...
I have always seen the recommendation that we should first write unit tests and then start writing code. But I feel that going the other way is much more comfortable (for me) - write code and then the unit tests, because I feel we have much more clarity after we have written the actual code. If I write the code and the...
The general idea on the web appears to be that video/audio are to be separated with plain text. By separated, I mean you have a place that plays video/audio and a place that you read text. This is because it is widely understood that they are vastly different. However, audio and video are just another way of communicat...
I'm currently working on 2 software projects: A Social Networking Web Site for an NGO A Patient Management System for a hospital Although I've been programming for 5 years, I can't just say that I'm very good at testing or Test Driven Designing an application. How would you arrange your Software Testing before coding...
The title pretty much says it all, but I can elaborate. I have a paid iOS app that has plenty of existing customers. I think i want to convert to a free app now, and allow full upgrade via in-app-purchase. The problem is, I don't want to make my existing customers buy the app again to use it, nor do I want to make it...
I am a freshman in college and doing a software engineering/ finance double major. I've been learning programming on my own and have a good bit of familiarity with php by now. I was wondering what you guys think the most relevant programming language is for financial/investment banking use? I have read this thread: ht...
I would like to hear opinions from people who have used a language that compiles to php. One such language I know is Haxe. Other ones I've read about are Kira and Pharen. How well do these languages integrate with PHP? Is it relatively easy to write a plug-in for a PHP CMS in them? How mature are their implementations...
Objective-C 2.0 introduced properties. While I personally think properties are nice addition to the language, I have seen a trend of making every instance variable as a property. Apple sample codes are no exceptions to this. I believe this is against the spirit of OOP, and since it exposes a lot more implementation det...
Just to be clear, I don't think this should be question better suited for stackoverflow.com simply because there's not a single answer but a wide range of possible solutions, making this question far more subjective in nature. I was curious how you guys would tackle a pattern-finding program, which is to say I'd do t...
I tend to keep my objects consistent during their lifetime. In some cases, setting up an object requires multiple calls to different routines. For example, a connection object may operate in this way: Connection c = new Connection(); c.setHost("http://whatever") c.setPort(8080) c.connect() please note this is just a s...
Is it currently possible to write desktop applications using javascript, html, css? Possible solutions: Use Adobe AIR runtime and program in js. But no, if I'm using AIR, the AS3 suites it the most. So not a good option. GWT: No because it uses Java and then convert it to js or what ever. Pyjamas: Interesting. But I'm ...
From the joel test: Can you make a build in one step? I've got to say I can't. I'm currently working on a web app that has a spreadsheet list of items that must be carried out in order to deploy. So my question is how can I automate this? Does it have to be organisation wide? Tips/techniques?
I have made a couple iPhone applications for a customer and was asked today to hand over the source code so that they could do the maintenance if this should be required. Until now, no code issues were ever discussed. Is there any "common" practice regarding this? Also, in which way should this affect the price?
I have heard about many content management systems (CMSs) such as Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla, etc. Many sites are built using these CMSs, but what are CMSs and how do they work? Is a CMS a normal blog-like site which has extended functionality, or can you do more with it?
Can anyone suggest good resources about web form design and usability for web applications? Especially complex forms with 15+ fields etc.
Are developers of a product considered stakeholders?
At what level do you prefer to handle Null values in your application? My personal preference at the moment is the DB. When I build a view, I ensure that I return a value in place of a NULL value. So if your front-end app were to connect to the application it would never have to handle nulls. In my VB6 apps, I made lib...
I'm looking for a tool to do system wide dependency analysis in C# code and SQL Server databases. It's looking like the only tool available that does this might be CAST (CAST software), which is expensive and it does lots more besides that I don't really need. C# code through to database column dependency would be hug...
I'd like to start this with a disclaimer that I realize that a full, clear-cut answer should be sought out by a lawyer. I am more so curious about what other users of this community have done Say that I had a small program that I had developed for fun, that I wished to release to the public. I'll drop it out there w...
I'm a pragmatic person (I think I am. But then again, Jon here has an interesting point ). Sometimes, the most simple solution to a problem to get the job done is the one that fits best for me, if it's not an utter blasphemy and reproach to any design principles. Check out my answer to this question on Stack Overflow. ...
Does anyone know of a good place to go find comparisons of programming languages by the intended platform/usage? Basically, what I want to know, is of the more popular languages, which ones are meant for high level application development, low level system development, mobile development, web, etc. If there's a good ...
I've heard that Apple pays the developers in lump sums (I forget how often) for their app downloads. My question is does Google work the same way with Android? If not, how do they operate their payment system? Kind of a side question as well, but how do Apple and Google get you the money from other countries? Do they a...
When talking with colleagues about software design and development principles, I've noticed one of the most common sources for analogies is the construction industry. We build software and we consider the design and structure to be the architecture. One of the best ways to learn (or teach) are through analyzing analog...
Do you write your code differently when you need to hand it over to a customer? How does one balance the delivery of good code while at the same time not handing over too much "intellectual property"?
What does the term "Open Core" software mean?
For example, the templates provided on the Open Source Initiative website for the 3-clause BSD License, and the MIT License both include an all-caps warranty disclaimer, though the rest of the license is written with normal capitalisation. Is there some genuine reason for this? Or is it just a tradition to make the war...
How can you determine objectively, over time, that you are getting any better at producing code? For example, I may sit here and feel that "I know <language> now, and I use <technique> now, so I must be better." But this does not account for my own bias, or the fact that I may be getting better at a slower rate than ...
I'm learning Lisp at the moment, coming from a language progression that is Locomotive BASIC -> Z80 Assembler -> Pascal -> C -> Perl -> C# -> Ruby. My approach is to simultaneously: write a simple web-scraper using SBCL, QuickLisp, closure-html, and drakma watch the SICP lectures I think this is working well; I'm d...
I have to create an API for our application that is accessible over HTTP. I envision the API's responses to be simple XML documents. It won't be a REST API (not in the strict sense of REST). I am fairly new to this space - of course I've had to consume some Web API's in my work, but often they are already wrapped in ...
We have been working with Microsoft on a ticket we opened due to one of our queries being much slower on MS Sql server 2k8 enterprise vs sql 2k5 standard. The engineers we are working with have incredible tools and knowledge of the internals of sql server. Is there any course I could take to get me this knowledge?
It occurred to me today that often the real goal of questions asked on sites such as this one (where the questions tend to be more open-ended than say, SO) is for the OP to become happier upon achieving the result. We often excuse this by saying our desire is to be more productive or release a better product, but if y...
(Let me start off by asking - please be gentle, I know this is subjective, but it's meant to incite discussion and provide information for others. If needed it can be converted to community wiki.) I recently was hired as a junior developer at a company I really like. I started out in the field doing QA and transitioned...
How do you deal with design in Scrum? Do you still have well written design documents for each scrum iteration? Do you just do design notes featuring UML diagrams? Or do you just have well commented code? Each iteration may involve changing design so I just wanted to know how people capture this so new developers have ...
I am a game dev who was working in the game-industry and then ... got laid off. Ever since then, life has been stressful! During this time, I have met so many other devs who have also been laid off irrespective of the number of years they have been in the game. There just aren't many opportunities for game development ...
Would a developer/tester position at Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc. (any large tech. company of which most people have heard) be more valuable on a resume than working as a developer/tester somewhere where tech. isn't the main objective (shipping company, restaurant chain, insurance company, etc.)? Let's say you have t...
I thought giving 3-4 working days was fine. But now I am not so sure. The candidates these days seem to be researching me on LinkedIn, trying to hazard a guess probably on what I could ask them as opposed to brushing the fundamentals up, and taking some challenging exercises from SPOJ etc. I am just thinking should I m...
I'm looking for an open source license which grants me additional privileges. Features: Anyone can freely modify, fork, use the code, as long as they make their source changes publicly available. They can use it in other open source projects, but not in closed-source projects. (similar to, say, GPL v3, with strong emp...
I am PHP MySQL developer and I am interested in the way television and radio are broadcasted over Internet live. I want to know how it works and and what are its requirements (which package of which programming language offers the best). And please clarify me: Websites are stored in servers. From my desktop, if I want ...
Stock options don't make much sense, since the company's private. [It still does, if you are a facebook of sorts AND the regulatory system permits sites like secondmarket, but I digress.] I could think of some: Health benefits to parents and parents-in-laws Sponsoring a fuel-saving bike to drive to office Gift cards...
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.
A current draft of the "National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" has been posted by the Department of Homeland Security. This question is not asking about privacy or constitutionality, but about how this act will impact developers' business models and development strategies. When the post was made I was ...
I recently got into PostSharp, an AOP tool for weaving in code. I've been finding a lot of resistance with other developers over giving up writing code to perform the tasks the weaving was meant to simplify. For instance, I'm finding logging or error-handling code where I have postsharp already doing that. I can und...
We're starting to use Story Points here for our Agile development but I find it hard to explain and also can't find any definitive answer to what they are. The best thing I can do is point to other sites (like this one) and give some vague generalization of what they are. I'm looking for a good explanation with some ex...
I have listed Ruby as a skill on my resume becuase I've been programming in Ruby for 5 years while I work on my Ph.D. thesis. I've mostly been using it to implement natural language processing algorithms. I'm starting to look for a job, and I posted my resume to a few sites (as an extra bonus when applying to certain o...
I'm just curious for everyone who is developing social sites out there. When you build a method for connecting users, do you prefer to use a following-style system (follow me, you can see all of my information and I can just choose to follow you back), or instead do you choose to have a friends-style system (I have to ...
Hey, I'm writing a program that I need to test with 1000s of XML files - any idea where I can get some?
I've been interviewing for co-ops (paid internships) lately and a large number of the companies I've been interviewing with have been saying they use Scrum or some other agile methodology (scrum being the most popular). I know that there are real agile shops and there are places which say they use an agile methodology...
Our shop has identified several reasons why releasing our software solutions to the open source community would be a good idea. However, there are several reasons from a business stand point why converting our shop to open source would be questioned. I need help from anyone out there who has gone through this transit...
I'm trying to convince management that testing/QA takes considerably longer than non-developers think. Some smaller shops don't have budgets for testers and phbs automatically assume the developer will spend a few minutes after every build "testing" and deliver a perfectly functional system. Can someone point me to ...
I learned very early on that cutting & pasting somebody else's code takes longer in the long run that writing it yourself. In my opinion unless you really understand it, cut & paste code will probably have issues which will be a nightmare to resolve. Don't get me wrong, I mean finding other peoples code and learning f...
When just starting a project, you have nothing---no UI, no data layer, nothing in between. Thus, a single story like "users should be able to view their foos" will entail a lot of work. Once you have that story, one like "users should be able to edit their foos" is more realistic, but that first story will involve sett...
As a manager, I can't always end up generating work that'd be cutting edge. Some of the projects do run on maintenance mode, and generate a healthy free cash flow for the company. As a developer what would it take for you to stick around in this project? I have been thinking of re-branding the work, but I could do wit...
What is the difference between a defect and a bug?
I am a pure internet product so i don't have any it degree or training so i am quit confused about bandwith. is it the memory resource server or processor resource or database server load? If i use sqlite database instead of mysql server for small projects, will it speed up my site performance (since sqlite file will b...
I'm about to hire a programmer to develop Windows Phone 7 apps. The current app that shall be developed is quite simple. The app will download content from a Web-API. There are two lists to select content. There is a single item content page. Users can rate the content and upload photos. The screens will be prod...
Which of the following to you find more readable? The hand-written loop: for (std::vector<Foo>::const_iterator it = vec.begin(); it != vec.end(); ++it) { bar.process(*it); } Or the algorithm invocation: #include <algorithm> #include <functional> std::for_each(vec.begin(), vec.end(), std::bind1st(std...
My company just canceled the project I was working on because they were dissatisfied with how it was going. I was quite disappointed with it because I thought the project was going well and I had already explained the limitations that the software would have due to the time constraints. I have decided that I will now l...
Context: I'm developing software that reproduce the functionality of Windows Home Server Drive Extender, where users use multiple hard disks to prevent data loss. The software exists since Dec-2009, but it has issues with renames (detailed below). I have a directory, dirA, that users can work in: they can create, modif...
Unobtrusive JavaScript avoids injecting inline JavaScript into HTML. This makes your HTML smaller and less cluttered, and makes it easier to swap out or customize JavaScript libraries http://www.asp.net/mvc/mvc3#BM_JavaScript_and_Ajax_Improvements what really is it ?( i am really trying to go deeper in the above articl...
The place I'm working for is a service provider. We have a lot of services, which are written to deal with deadline, so their code are really terrible: No coding convention, everyone codes in his own style No unit testing (which is really bad) No refactoring (which is truly worse) No automation build/deployment etc ...
How do you draft a quick & easy "Testing Plan Lite" for a medium-sized web project (70k lines, 2 developers)? I've seen many tutorials/articles on methods of testing, but all seem cumbersome. For us, the goal is to be able to be able to divide up and delegate testing instructions to our friends for different project s...
It has been a while since I have done any substantial web development and I'd like to take advantage of the latest practices but I'm struggling to visualize the workflow to incorporate everything. Here's what I'm looking to use: CakePHP framework jsmin (JavaScript Minify) SASS (Synctactically Awesome StyleSheets) Git ...
I think that most people would agree that ASP.NET MVC is one of the better technologies Microsoft has given us. It gives full control over the rendered HTML, provides separation of concerns and suites to stateless nature of web. The last version of the framework gaves us new features and tools and it's great, but... wh...
Not fatigue as in 'I need sleep' but fatigue as in 'I just can't be bothered anymore' which usually sets in when you hit roadblocks in whatever project you're working on, generally the closer you get to deadlines. It can be in work projects or personal projects, but it's something I keep hitting more and more lately. I...
At our shop, we strive to be agile. And I'd say we are making great strides. That said, a few of us have spotted a pattern we have started calling "Failure Driven Development". Failure Driven Development can basically be desribed as an agile release/iteration cycle where the bugs/features are guided not by tasks and st...
I'm interested in learning more about programming languages. In particular, I'd like to look at some of the new developments in programming languages (even the really obscure ones that only academics care about). I need to learn to read grammar specifications, as well. Where should I begin?
I develop an android application and in my app I use a libary (jar) that I download from the internet. This jar is open-source under the "GNU General Public License v2". I tried to read the text of the license but had difficulty understanding it. My question is: can I use this libary without changing nothing in the jar...
Most people seem to treat debugging as an art, rather than a science. For those here which treat it as a science, rather than an art - what process(es) do you normally use when faced with a new issue/bug/problem?
Possible Duplicate: When is Singleton appropriate? I am a new programmer (4 months into my first job) and have recently taken an interest in design patterns. One that I have used recently is the Singleton. However, looking at some comments on this thread. It has some bad feedback; can somebody explain why? I have ...
Say you started as SaaS service with freemium business model such 37Signals - Basecamp or Dropbox etc.. Is there an OSS license that says that you can use the source code etc.. but you cant release a SaaS based on it, esssentially released in good faith with non-compete expectations. e.g. if 37Signals released the sour...
I've been hired to make a website and am working with a designer (who happens to be the guy who is in contact with the client and hired me, so no, I can't kick his ass out =) ) who's too afraid to touch into the php code, and is too newbie in html and css to give me good enough models, so the work of today will be goin...
I have read that at a lot of companies you have to write code at an interview. On the one hand I see that it makes sense to ask for a work sample. On the other hand: What kind of code do you expect to be written in 5 minutes? And what if they tell me "Write an algorithm that does this and that" but I cannot think of a ...
Can anybody share a reason (or list of reasons) of not using the native android junit framework but a standalone one like robolectric or something like that? I'm just trying to understand what framework to learn.
What languages would you suggest a programmer to learn, not because they will have a lot of use of the language (but they may have), but because it will improve one's programming skill in general and let one think in a different (and possibly better) way?
I've never written programs which make significant use of logging. The most I've done is to capture stack traces when exceptions happen. I was wondering, how much do other people log? Does it depend what kind of application you are writing? Do you find the logs actually helpful?
I've made a pretty good living as a self-taught programmer, but when I find that I discuss some low-level fundamental topics with my peers who have a CS degree, holes appear in my knowledge. I'm a big picture (architecture) guy, so for a long time this hasn't bothered me, but lately I've wondered if there is an approac...
Possible Duplicate: Is it better to specialize in a single field I like, or expand into other fields to broaden my horizons? I work at a ~50 employee company (UK), where all the technical people do a bit of everything. Specialising in anything for very long (6 months) is discouraged. For example, last week, I built ...
I am in a position where I have to hire a programmer and have the option of 2 candidates, the first has experience but he doesn't have a passion for coding and he says so while the second doesn't have the experience but he has the passion, he did well in the interview and is certified. We have the resources to train so...
What pitfalls should I avoid? What Java language paradigms do Objective-C developers consistently misunderstand? I learned to program in Java, but I have worked in nothing but Objective-C for years now. How are the design patterns different between Android and iOS? If you've made the transition yourself, what parts of...
How do you deal with evolution in the coding standards / style guide in a project for the existing code base? Let's say someone on your team discovered a better way of object instantiation in the programming language. It's not that the old way is bad or buggy, it's just that the new way is less verbose and feels much m...
I currently try to design an engine at the core level. However, I cannot decide if input thread should be mixed with a rendering thread or any other thread. Would making it an extra thread with all the locks it will require be slower? If it's same or faster, would at least be marginally faster? [Consider the above only...
I've been actively programming with assembly but now I'm losing motivation. My productivity is simply ridiculously low compared to what others seem to have with high level languages. I know I should start using high level languages but I always return to assembly for some reason. How could I get used to higher level la...
Does anyone have any experience in telecommuting (working at home) for a company based in some foreign country? By this I don't mean working on some contracted job, but more or less permanent job. Is this even possible, what are options for payment, and can you expect to be paid by usual rates for that country or signi...
I cannot find a good way to to ask this question: Every day I read the news about the sale of "Twitter" or "Friendster" or "hi5". What I would like to know is how the price of such websites are evaluated?
It continue to astounds me that, in this day and age, products that have years of use under their belt, built by teams of professionals, still to this day - fail to provide helpful error messages to the user. In some cases, the addition of just a little piece of extra information could save a user hours of trouble. A ...
We've long had coding standards for our .Net code, and there seem to be several reputable sources for ideas on how to apply them which evolve over time. I'd like to be able to put together some standards for the SQL that is written for use by our products, but there don't seem to be any resources out there on the conse...

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