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If you know of an open source project whose organizer has gotten really busy that he doesn't maintain it that much and he's the type of guy that doesn't accept contributions until a few months later (busy I guess) if at all and the project is starting to flounder would you fork this project, give it a new name, an...
I've been tasked with creating a fun and relaxing environment, one thing I know that I want is ergonomic mice and keyboards, others have suggested exercise balls and bands. What is it that every programmer needs while working? What might not be necessary but would be nice to have anyway? Note: this question was asked p...
Does your company have a written policy about contributing to open-source projects? We've been contributing "don't ask don't tell" style, but it's time to write something down. I'd appreciate both full written policy text and bits and pieces. Update: we've made some progress since I asked this question and now have su...
I want to contribute to an open source project, but I don't know much about unit testing. I want to learn how to test and then practice my skills on an open source. Will this also be acknowledged as a contribution. I want to first get my name out there and then conc. on development.
When is it useful to use a captcha? When is it an unnecessary hindrance? Is a captcha just a quick fix for the lazy/unexperienced programmer, or are they really the best way to prevent spam and bots?
I want to understand an existing project to improve myself more, but I am not sure if the project would be overwhelming for me or not. I am not sure if I am capable of understanding it. I even think that I will fail. When I look at projects at a glance, it makes me feel scared to see thousand line of codes. I don't ev...
We test our code to make it more correct (actually, less likely to be incorrect). However, the tests are also code -- they can also contain errors. And if your tests are buggy, they hardly make your code better. I can think of three possible types of errors in tests: Logical errors, when the programmer misunderstood t...
I am curious if anyone knows of any methodologies that are significantly different (not a recombination) and I would especially appreciate anyone who brought forward any experience with alternatives.
I often have to explain technical things and technical decisions to my extremely non technical manager and I'm pretty awful at it. What are good ways to essential dumb things down for the rest of the world who don't have a passion for programming? Example questions I've been asked: Why are you using Django instead of ...
Take the example of the recent ASP.NET (and Java Server Faces) vulnerability disclosure at a Hacker conference in Brazil. It's my understanding that the poet tool was demonstrated before Microsoft was even aware of the issue. Are there laws to protect legitimate customers from people who encite the hacker community to...
I need to hire a web designer. How do I test his creativity and skills before I hire him. Ideally I'd like to give him a fairly open-ended task i.e. I give him a problem statement and ask him to design a PSD file. Any suggestions on the problem statement I might give him? Also, is there a better way to hire /test a we...
I'm in the planning stages of developing a web application that I want to make as secure as possible. I'm pretty clear about how to do that from a technical point of view, but there is one massive potential security hole: I want the site to have users. As anyone who has ever been a user knows, users forget usernames, ...
I'm looking for a 'term' that describes holistically the set of various software development tools/services that most developers use on a day to day basis. While each tool by itself has a specific purpose and can be described, is there a plural term when they are grouped together and running as a holistic service. If a...
I saw some projects require BISON to generate C++ code. What is the advantage of having BISON/Yacc etc. generate C/C++ code instead of writing it yourself?
We've all heard it; whenever there's a discussion about CS grads having poor development skills someone eventually says, Computer science isn't software engineering. The problem that I see is that programming and software development are taught in CS courses. They're just commonly taught poorly. If it's being taught,...
A common task in the working world is dealing with existing, but buggy code. What are some tips to improve your skills as a debugger?
All, Given a problem statement, when I start of with the analysis and design, I tend to think too much about the various functionalities associated with the task (sometimes not even mentioned in the task). My point is, I get diverted from the main task at hand thinking about various scenarios that I should consider whi...
It seems like after I've written a significant amount of code I get this anxious feeling like I haven't done it in the best possible way, and I end up continuously refactoring and spending way too much time on the project, or never getting it done sometimes. Does this ever happen to anyone else, and how do you deal wit...
I was talking with someone today and this discussion came up. Suppose you purchase some software and X user licenses for it. You then want to install another instance of the software, however the company tells you that you need to buy another X licenses to use the 2nd installation. Is it ethical to duplicate the licens...
I'm planning on using Vincent Driessen's branching model which I found great for my current development. I think Vincent approach is very general to any development project but I'm finding it difficult to handle the following scenario. I'm working on an application that will be branded to several customers, so each one...
I once interviewed at a consulting company where it came up in the conversation that they use open source products (which is great, I've used Hibernate, JBoss, etc. extensively.) One thing that did surprise me is that when I asked if they used GPL licensed OSS when writing applications for clients, they said "Sure, al...
I’m a long time developer (I’m 49) but rather new to object oriented development. I’ve been reading about OO since Bertrand Meyer’s Eiffel, but have done really little OO programming. The point is every book on OO design starts with an example of a boat, car or whatever common object we use very often, and they start a...
I feel the MVVM community has become overzealous like the OO programmers in the 90's - it is a misnomer MVVM is synonymous with no code. From my closed StackOverflow question: Many times I come across posts here about someone trying to do the equivalent in XAML instead of code behind. Their only reason being they want ...
I was involved in a programming discussion today where I made some statements that basically assumed axiomatically that circular references (between modules, classes, whatever) are generally bad. Once I got through with my pitch, my coworker asked, "what's wrong with circular references?" I've got strong feelings on t...
We find it relatively easy to hire developers to work on various projects. The problem arises when the project is finished but still needs to be supported. We really battle to get people to join the support team. It's seen as dead-end, career-limiting, boring, second-class etc. Currently, we get round this by getting ...
I code primarily in .net at work, but was wondering if home MSDN subscriptions were available/worthwhile as a tool to stay in touch with the latest technology for Microsoft development?
I am using MAMP (just and example) to develop web applications without having to constantly upload and download via FTP. I´m sure this is the correct way to test a project but I´m no sure if I´m doing it right. After I´m satisfied with the project I have to change in every page the MySQL databases and most of the link...
We have an enormous number of nested SQL stored procedures, and a number of different ways of debugging them (varying from developer to developer). So far, our methods include: An optional @debug parameter, that causes the procedure to printmessages as it runs (passing the variable down to called procedures). Checking...
I never used an automated test mechanism in any of my projects and I feel I'm missing a lot. I want to improve myself, so I have to start tackling some issues I've been neglecting like this and trying Git instead of being stuck on SVN. What's a good way to learn TDD? I'll probably be using Eclipse to program in Java. I...
If you are developing your own architecture or heavily use anothers vendors API, how do you promote awareness to the programming staff? For example, say you use Infragistics controls for you C# winforms apps - the controls have boatloads of methods, some quirks, and a best way to use them for your application. How do y...
Seriously, what's the big deal about having a few cycles in one's import graph? I see it as a lesser evil than having super fine grained imports that make keeping track of where to look for what code an absolute nightmare.
If applying for a new job, would you put your Stack Overflow profile link on your resume? This would show the employer you're an active member of the development community and also provide an insight into your knowledge + how well you convey your ideas. However it would feel a bit gimmicky to me?
This is my first question here, so i'll make it short and to the point. When Writing unit tests, should you write them before or after you have made the underlying framework for them? This came up in a discussion between my CEO and President, and I wanted your opinion on this. Personally, I have always wrote the code f...
As much as programmers hate to document their code/system and draw UML (especially, Sequencing, Activity and State machine diagrams) or other diagramming notation, would you agree to do it if it kept managers from requesting a "minor change" every couple of weeks? IOW, would you put together visual models to document t...
My group at work has been trying to come up with a good process that we can use with TFS. I'm just wondering if some of you guys had some successful strategies with using TFS across multiple sites using multiple branches. One specific issue that we have is probably our release engine. On the simple side, a developer s...
Good Day Everyone, I am realy out of option for interpreting the GPL for EXTJS for my work/idea/personal project. I can see that this is an active forum I realy hope, I have a closure on this. First let me explain my project, Iam creating this website which is like a webportal which is intented for End-User, now this w...
Is there a size where you can copy under fair use for code you don't have a license for the purpose? For example, what if I copy a snippet that is (normally) 3 lines of code? Is that fair use? If it is fair use, what length is required before I need a license?
I've seen a lot of other framework/library developers throw the phrase 'we write opinionated software' around, but in practical terms, what does that really mean? Does it mean that the author of the 'Opinionated Framework X' says that because they write code a certain way, you should be writing the same type of code th...
I've seen a lot of different ways to [or not to] comment out the code, specially patterns on desciptions of function details and file purposes. I'd like to know what is most used pattern to do that [I'm specially interested on documentation generators and their patterns]
I am looking into learning Python for web development. Assuming I already have some basic web development experience with Java (JSP/Servlets), I'm already familiar with web design (HTML, CSS, JS), basic programming concepts and that I am completely new to Python, how do I go about learning Python in a structured manner...
Does your company have a written policy about personal (technical) blogging? Care to share? We encourage our developers to keep personal blogs and talk about technical problems they've encountered at work that are not core competency or core IP. We've been doing it "don't ask don't tell" style, but it's time to write s...
How necessary or important is it? I try to keep a running list of blogs or sites to follow, but a lot of the time I pull up someone's profile and notice there isn't anything there. Is it really important? I understand are different levels of programming (from C/C++ system programmers to Rails and even Haskell and J) a...
Let's say you have a static method that looks something like this: public static bool Foo() { var bar = new Bar(); //do some stuff here } This method as it stands can be a real headache to unit test. What is the best practice to refactor this so that it can be testable, without turning it into an instance met...
Questions revolving around ways of getting customers to embrace new web technology / browsers so one can deliver better web software to the end user. It's hard to manage expectations of customers. Expectations such as: Websites should work on older browsers. (ambiguous). Websites should not require specific hardware. ...
TBH: I've never used an observer pattern. But it looks pretty useful for this situation: I'm developing a very simple strategy game. It involves two combatants who simultaneously bludgeon each other over a short period of time, the winner being the combatant with the most health remaining in the end. Now, there's a ...
I was going through this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subculture Which got mee thinking is programming a subculture? After the a while I started thinking it really hard, and if you go really in depth this is a very complex and interesting question to ask. YOu can even ask yourself if (heavy) internet (social) ...
I am editing some c++ and all of the built in types have been wrapped in a corresponding wrapper class. All of the operators have been overloaded to do bizarre things like operator[] coded to ignore the argument or to exactly what the underlying type would do. Is this malevolent or is there some possibility this is a ...
EDIT: As gavenkoa's answer points out, Oracle Database 12c (released a couple of years after this question was asked) has support for Identity Columns. As far as I know, Oracle's RDBMS is one of the few (the only?) SQL database products that doesn't support identity/autonumeric columns. The alternative offered by Orac...
I've done some open source projects, and I plan to do more in the future. So far, I've released all my code under GPL, but I've read a few articles which claim GPL is too restrictive for any code to be used in corporate environment. This, supposedly, reduces contributions. Here's what I wanted to accomplish: For full a...
[Disclaimer: this question is subjective, but I would prefer getting answers backed by facts and/or reflexions] I think everyone knows about the Robustness Principle, usually summed up by Postel's Law: Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept. I would agree that for the design of a widespread c...
I have heard this time and again and I am trying to understand and validate the idea that FP and OO are orthogonal. First of all, what does it mean for 2 concepts to be orthogonal ? FP encourages immutability and purity as much as possible. and OO seems like something that is built for state and mutation(a slightly or...
NEW YORK - With a blast that made skyscrapers tremble, an 83-year-old steam pipe sent a powerful message that the miles of tubes, wires and iron beneath New York and other U.S. cities are getting older and could become dangerously unstable. July 2007 Story About a Burst Steam Pipe in Manhattan We've hear...
It's been generally accepted in the OO community that one should "favor composition over inheritance". On the other hand, inheritance does provide both polymorphism and a straightforward, terse way of delegating everything to a base class unless explicitly overridden and is therefore extremely convenient and useful. D...
In maths, a variable means you can put any number there, and an equation will still be true: root(square(x)) = abs(x) In programming languages, this is not so: a var can change. In Python: y = (x2).5 x *= 2 assert y == abs(x) will raise an exception, since x in the last line is not the same. Are there programming...
Say, for example, I wanted to pay somebody to create a programming language or scripting language for me. What type of document would they need, in order to fully understand what it is exactly that I want. I mean, are there standard documents that describe the new programming/scripting language in question?
C is ubiquitous, and C++ nearly as much, but I'm curious which other languages follow a similar model of header files. Specifically, in which other languages is it idiomatic to edit pairs or groups of "header" and "implementation" files? (A group as in multiple headers with one corresponding implementation file or a ...
Most programming languages are Turing complete, which means that any task that can be solved in one language can be solved in another one, or even on Turing machine. Then why aren't there automatic translators that can convert programs from any given language to any other language? I've seen couple attempts for two lan...
I'm looking forward to delving into the .NET framework but most mobile applications seem to be developed in Java. I'll most probably be targeting the less pricier phones like Nokia and motorolla not android or iphone OS. Can I do these stuffs in C#?
You probably know the list of open source licenses officially approved by the OSI. Most notably I guess would be the GPL, MIT, [insert your favorite license here]. I recently ran into a project which although was open source (the creator made all source code available), was not officially open source under one of those...
I'm a student at the University of South Florida who's frustrated with the educational environment in the Computer Science program. Right now, I'm taking "Program Design." I should be learning how to organize my source code into functions and modules in order to make my programs readable and maintainable; instead, I'm ...
Not because I care how long it takes someone to read a book, but more because I'm interested in how people get the knowledge from a book (or I guess other sources) into their brains in the best, most efficient way. Personally I take a multi-pass approach (from my answer to the original question): Skim through contents...
When choosing what we want to study, and do with our careers and lives, we all have some expectations of what it is going to be like. Now that I've been in the industry for almost a decade, I've been reflecting a bit on what I thought (back when I was studying Computer Science) programming working life was going to be ...
For most open source project, there is a well-founded project team and corporate sponsorship, and a lot of active contributors. The procedure for filing bug reports are clearly documented. However, there are also some open source project(s) that have been in existence for more than 10 years (maybe 15), and were include...
Some time ago I wrote a very small python script that periodically checked an xml feed for new entries, and alerted the user to new entries when present. I wrote this for myself, so it was essentially a console based program that anyone comfortable with a console interface could have used. After a while I decided it co...
Imagine the following scenario: You've detected that your (or someone else's) program has a bug - a function produces the wrong result when given a particular input. You examine the code and can't find anything wrong: it just seem to bog out when given this input. You can now do one of two things: you either examine th...
Pseudocode helps us understand tasks in a language-agnostic manner. Is it best practice or suggested approach to have pseudocode creation as part of the development lifecycle? For instance: Identify and split the coding tasks Write pseudocode Get it approved [by PL or TL] Start Coding based on Pseudocode Is this a su...
Possible Duplicate: Is there a canonical book on design patterns? I'd like to read a design patterns book. GoF for sure is the one to read. But after 15 years is it still valid, I mean isn't there an updated one? Something like "Charles Darwin On the origin of species" is a very important book, and some main concept...
I've heard it said that the inclusion of null references in programming languages is the "billion dollar mistake". But why? Sure, they can cause NullReferenceExceptions, but so what? Any element of the language can be a source of errors if used improperly. And what's the alternative? I suppose instead of saying thi...
There is a colleague of mine who constantly writes: if (someBool == true) It drives me up the wall! Should I make a big deal of it or just drop it?
Say you've started an open source project and are posting it on a public repository. (like I have, using Codeplex.) One of the key files just makes the connection to the database, contains the login/password, and is just included from any other source file that needs a database connection. What's the best way to share...
I work for a mid sized Architecture and Engineering firm, our sub group focuses on developing tech solutions for engineers, mappers and technical managers. So we're heavy on desktop based apps for GIS and Civil/Env Engineering (some web). The company sells the services that our Engineers and mappers produce and our tea...
I know python is not suitable for things like microcontrolers, make drivers etc, but besides that, you can do everything using python, companys get stuck with speed optimizations for real hard time system but does forget other factors which one you can just upgrade your hardware for speed proposes in order to get your ...
I am curious about the very early steps that a programmer's mind takes when it first encounters a problem that it is supposed to solve. How do you start reasoning about it ? What are the first questions you ask yourself ??. Ok, let me make it more concrete for those of you who think the question is too vague or enti...
I am working as a PhD student developing scientific/engineering simulations and algorithms to be tested in these simulations. These days the first student started to work on my project (for his Bachelor thesis) and I am wondering: how should I organize the project now? I think I have some good C++ knowledge (although I...
I have been going through Flask and it seems that now I have a decent understanding to go ahead and build a web application. However I want to know how would I approach the problem. For eg: I decide to build a blogging application. The first thing I do is write down all the things that come to my mind, from user regist...
I was wondering what is the best work rhythm for the job a programmer does? I am coding all day long and sometimes I get stuck in a problem and it keeps me occupied a few hours before I realize that maybe I need a break. Some say frequent and short brakes help you but sometimes when I am focused on a problem I feel lik...
If a piece of bespoke software was developed by a company and the Intellectual Property was retained by the company that wrote it, but now the client of the software company wants to get that source code (and its IP) how much should it cost them? How would you calculate a fair cost for the purchase of that source and I...
As a programmer what do you think that is the thing that your manager does that mostly decreases your motivation? My manager insists in blocking web content (this week was msdn content and Microsoft domain sites) This is so stupid, make me think I am not a reliable professional or that I am stealing his internet. And n...
I want to create a list of ranks for the employees in my company. We are an open source integrator that works usually with existing solutions and also building custom solutions. We don't want to name our employees as normal senior consultant, trainee and we would like give them ranks as forums do to the users. Does any...
I am a fairly adept .NET and PHP programmer. These days my pattern of choice for complex web apps is an SOA approach where I use PHP as the front end, and WCF web services as the middle tier. My ajax calls are usually to JSON webHttpBinding WCF endpoints. On the .NET side of things I am absolutely in love with the Visu...
Yesterday, a colleague asked me how to configure our VCS to timestamp the local copy of files pulled from the repository with the modification time in the repository. I've always believed that they should be timestamped with the time they were pulled so that if you make a change, build, then back out by overwriting th...
I've been interested in programming for a while now, and have been slowly, slowly, slowly working on things over the years. However, I don't feel like I've learned much. I've only really stuck with familiar languages (Java, C# and I've tried a little bit of PHP). The problem is that in those languages, I've only brushe...
When you are under pressure, the deadline is approaching, and a manager is breathing down your neck do you find yourself starting to write bad code? Do TDD and best practices slip by the wayside in order to get things done? What do you do in situations like that? What were your experiences?
Recently I worked with a group to create a logging system for tutoring labs to track Tutor hours, and usage of the labs. We had to change the design a fair amount to be in compliance with FERPA. My question stems from the curiosity that in my course of study there has never been a real mention of how people in this fi...
I was told not to use Jquery as a beginner because it would hamper my learning of Javascript. Now I've read a couple books on Javascript, read loads of sites, and made a Javascript web app. Am I ready for Jquery? If not, then how will I know when I'm ready?
Which was the first language with generic programming support, and what was the first major staticly typed language (widely used) with generics support. Generics implement the concept of parameterized types to allow for multiple types. The term generic means "pertaining to or appropriate to large groups of classes." ...
I was just thinking of something that would be really cool to have in my if-elif-else controls. if condition: stuff() elif condition: otherstuff() then: stuff_that_applies_to_both() else: stuff_that_doesnt_aply_to_either() So basically a then will be run when any of the conditions are run EXCEPT the e...
Since a year I am a graduated Computer Engineer, and am now working in named field since 2 years. However, I'd like to get a Masters in a "softer" field and was thinking over the following choices: MBA: Master of Business Administration, to bridge the business world with the world of computer science. Would give me an...
Which of these is better for maintainability? if (byteArrayVariable != null) if (byteArrayVariable .Length != 0) //Do something with byteArrayVariable OR if ((byteArrayVariable != null) && (byteArrayVariable.Length != 0)) //Do something with byteArrayVariable I prefer reading and writing the second, ...
At a meta level, I often find that when I grow a codebase organically, parts of the system that I eventually find need to know about each other (at least through some interface) have been mercilessly decoupled. This often occurs in research prototype code, where one tends to frequently think of tweaks and small improv...
I'm the odd kind of developer that likes writing and explaining - emails, specs, you name it. I enjoy helping people understand things deeply. I hate ping-pong communications where groups go through 30 or 40 emails, phone calls and meetings because 25% of the group misunderstood the previous dashed-off email in which ...
2 years ago I starded learning AS3 in order to get hired at a web design company. A few months later, I ditched it, because I discovered that I'm better at design; so now I'm a web designer. Recently, I decided that knowing JavaScript would be nice and helpful, so i started with Essential JavaScript Training from Lynda...
One of our junior developers has been assigned a new client (we don't have the client yet, we're still working with him to see if we can meet his needs) and the junior developer said the client will hire us if we can do the work on his project without getting access to his server. I've had a direct conversation with th...
I'm wondering why we don't have some string classes that represent a string of Unicode grapheme clusters instead of code points or characters. It seems to me that in most applications it would be easier for programmers to access components of a grapheme when necessary than to have to organize them from code points, wh...
Our team is switching to Scrum. I would be the ScrumMaster (in addition to being a developer), and another developer would become Product Owner (in addition to our product marketing guy). All members of the team, including me, would be managed by the would-be Product Owner. By that I mean that the guy would be the one ...
Scrum being a project management methodology, how would you 'sell' it to the developers in a team that is reasonably happy with its current situation? It seems easy to me to explain to our Product Manager how Scrum will allow him to get regular releases, to amend requirements, and get the team to focus on the high-prio...
At my current workplace, we don't have any testers, the rationale for that from the management being: "if we had testers, you wouldn't test your own code at all". This kind of thinking seems to be detrimental to product quality, as while I do test my own code, there are a lot of things that I will miss just for the fac...
I have a problem: I suck at tracking time-on-task for specific feature/defects/etc while coding them. I tend to jump between tasks a fair bit (partly due to the inherit juggling required by professional software development, partly due to my personal tendancy to focus on the code itself and not the business process ar...
We are currently developing a .net app in WPF, that will be a desktop app with a good bit of data-access to local (and some remote) servers. The business logic here is very complex, and currently it is built into the code along with the data access and whatnot (being WPF the UI is separated pretty nicely). Now, I have ...
When there is too much work for one scrum team to manage, multiple teams are created. A scrum team has a stand up meeting everyday. How often should the intra-scrum team meeting occur and who should attend? What should they talk about?

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