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I participated in a set of interviews for a position in which I was hired recently. During the interview process I was interviewed 6 seperate times. 3 technical interviews and 3 situational / business interviews. During my second (and most dificult interview) the interviewer, who is now my manager, asked me to provi...
While developing in a group atmosphere and adding or modifying features in some code base. Is it considered offensive or impolite to reformat the previous developers code to bring it up to current coding standards? I understand that standards have changed, and will probably continue to change, but would any of you get ...
Multiple clients can modify the DB and all need to be notified if a DB change occurs. Where I work, this is implemented with application threads that poll the DB every second or so. This doesn't strike me as a good way to do it, so I was wondering how do people usually handle this?
I'm considering sitting with the end-users and observing them while the work for a day to better understand the software requirements. Before I try this, I'm hoping someone can provide a list of best practices, suggestions on when this approach is more/less suitable than simply interviewing the users, and notes from yo...
I want to create a new application. It will basically be a Deep Zoom application that users can draw annotations on (that will save to a DB so other users can see those annotations.) At first it will just simply run in a browser. However, the app would be useful if it could be used by enthusiasts in the field, so abi...
I've got a team of developers which are trying to write specifications/tests concurrently for different (and sometimes adjacent) parts of the system. Typically, the person writing the specification/test is not the developer who will write the implementation and make the specification/test pass. Here's the problem we're...
I am involved with the development of a Windows application that has various screens. One of them takes ten seconds to appear with no spinner or other indication that the screen is loading. I consider this a serious performance issue but I seem to be the only one who is concerned. Am I being overzealous? What is an ac...
If you maintain many branches in your favorite version control system it is essential understand which branch for which indented. In SVN you can put README on same level as trunk/branches/features dirs. How about DVCS? You can maintain ChangeLog. But with this approach it is hard get breif view that done in all branche...
It was started with C# 5's new keyword "async". And now I see this async programming everywhere from Javascript to C++, mostly from Microsoft. And from various discussions I came to know, this is a very useful technique to avoid threading yet keep CPU working while other things are fetched form hard disk or network. My...
I want to automatically generate documentation for a java project, but I'd like to have my own custom styling for it. As an example, take the stackoverflow api (method description page), can that be done by an automated tool? Can it "take me close" to that? I wouldn't mind having to manually change a few things to achi...
I just found myself writing the following comment in some (archaic Visual Basic 6.0) code I was writing: If WindowState <> 1 Then 'The form's not minimized, so we can resize it safely '... End if I'm not sure why I subconsciously use "we" in my comments. I suspect it's because I imagine someone stepping throug...
I'm starting with BDD and this is my story: Feature: Months and days to days In order to see months and days as days As a date conversion fan I need a webpage where users can enter days and months and convert them to days. I have some doubts ... Should I write my scenarios before coding anything or sho...
I have read the licensing FAQ and from what I understood people are allowed to use Mono in commercial applications. However, I wonder if Microsoft can interfer with this in any way since they own the .NET Framework and, I suppose, every related patent. Can't that a tiny little bit dangerous? Also, as a side question......
I am creating a main object, MACHINE, which will contain a diversity of several other objects -- AXIS, AMPLIFIER, ENDEFFECTOR, etc. The number of contained objects will vary depending on the MACHINE model object that I am using. For example, a certain machine might have one AXIS and one ENDEFFECTOR; another 3 AXIS and ...
From last one week i was searching for most suitable architecture for a new web application. To be honest i did web development for only 1 year (back in 2007). And from last four years i am working in C++. Now, suddenly i am assigned a task to search for best architecture for a new web application. During my search i c...
I've been looking for a efficient and secure way of enabling multi-site capabilities to codeigniter for a while. These two(one & two) articles I found pretty interesting, but they don't seem to offer a scalable way of doing it. Of the two, John Dennis Pedrie's(link two) method seemed to be more thought out for our purp...
Quoted from Wikipedia: A scripting language, script language or extension language is a programming language that allows control of one or more applications and makes the compiler of the language part of the language runtime, and as a result, enables code to be generated dynamically. "Scripts" are distinct...
Question for lisp programmers: Lisp code is lisp data, usually lists. Is there an advantage to code being lists over code being arrays? Would macros be easier to write/faster to run? You can assume that, in such a language (you could call it "arrap"), elements can be deleted from or inserted into arrays and that the a...
From my understanding, the web interface was developed to use HTML because at the time it wasn't possible to simulate a desktop style application in the browser such as how Silverlight and Flash work, because of bandwidth limitations, and possibly processing power. Why hasn't there in the past, and the present been a l...
I'm a nub programmer, using python, and my current project is a chatbot for an irc channel I reside in. I wish to make it capable of keeping conversations organized, primarily between its self and one other person. Right now, I'm creating a conversation object when the bot is initially addressed. The object has the at...
I am looking for a SAAS solution that offers project management, time tracking, invoicing and file sharing (to share with clients) as well as source control, work item management and team management for a programming team. In other words, a complete solution for a consulting programmer/programming team. I am looking a...
I was reading about memcache and one of the questions that I have for this moment is about 'measuring database load'. In this tutorial they are talking about a 'database load of 20'. How can I measure the database load of a web application?
I am pretty good with C++, good as in I am comfortable with the language, I have read Accelerated C++ and done almost all the exercises. However, I have a big problem. Do I need to learn C? I have never done C ever in my life. I just started with C++ when I started with programming. Probably cause I was always interest...
I have a requirement to filter profanity out of users' submissions in a Java-based web application. The client is aware of both the Scunthorpe Problem and the Clbuttic Problem and have accepted the consequences. Please, I don't desire a debate on the merits of lack thereof of censorship. There are two bits of data: Th...
I have the impression that more and more applications with a user interface use HTML+CSS+JavaScript client-side instead of a native GUI framework. I wounder what are the most important driving forces for this? or in other words what are native GUI frameworks lacking to be competitive? e.g. is it easier to do some kind ...
I have come across the expression software/feature bloat, but is this a real thing or should we rather be talking about things like performance problems, memory and disk footprint, user experience and on-demand installation? What am I missing here?
Possible Duplicate: When should you call yourself a senior developer? I often see offers for senior programmers and the rule of thumb seems to be that you need to have worked three years to become one. Duration doesn't mean much so what exactly is expected of a senior programmer? What should he be capable of doing? ...
What are some common algorithmic optimization opportunities that everyone should be aware of? I have recently be revising/reviewing some code from an application, and noticed that it appeared to be running considerably slower than it could. The following loop turned out to be the culprit, ... float s1 = 0.0; ...
So, I have this idea for a huge game that would take years to develop if I did it on my own (with help from friends) I've learned a lot about game programming, but nowhere near enough to start coding the thing itself. It would still take at least two years if I started a business and hired programmers How much will ope...
From Wikipedia: the term endian or endianness refers to the ordering of individually addressable sub-components within a longer data item as stored in external memory (or, sometimes, as sent on a serial connection). These sub-components are typically 16- or 32-bit words, 8-bit bytes, or even bits. I w...
I want to learn new things. Initially I was a PHP programmer. Then I thought it was not enough. Then I started learning Java thing. It took me 3 months to learn. Java, J2EE, Spring, Hibernte, Spring Security, Spring Roo and many design patterns MVC and stuff like AOP, DI . I never knew that before but I got the idea wh...
I'm a student with good knowledge in C programming and like to contribute any open source project which is developed in C. I searched SourceForge and selected 7-Zip because its widely used one and developed using C. I thought to start first by fixing bugs (which was suggested by many people in their websites) and gone ...
I generally include JavaScript files using the script tag as below. <script type="text/javascript" src="somefile.js"></script> I have seen some people using the language attribute as well. Now-a-days I find many people omitting the type attribute. I have started to get a feeling that if JavaScript is the default scri...
The idea of java3d is very interesting, but I don't see any desktop or web applications built using java3d. Where is it used and what perspectives does it have?
I was wondering what the standard/best practice is with regard to managing user-uploaded images. Obviously there needs to be a way to limit file sizes, but what's the best and most common practice here -- limit the size of the image that can be uploaded by the user, or reduce the size once it's uploaded on the back-en...
I've been reading the book "SQL and Relational Theory: How to Write Accurate SQL Code" by C. J. Date. I have no formal background in CS, much less relational theory. Combined with the fact English is not my first language, I'm having a little trouble to understand a statement. At one moment (page 17) the author states:...
I been struggling to understand few concepts but no success yet. Can someone help me to understand that with simple example and definition please. 1 - Delegates in .NET 2 - Abstraction 3 - Three tier architecture Thanks
I've been programming for about 2 years, and so far Java is all I know. When I made the switch from BlueJ to eclipse I noticed my old projects ran much faster. What would be the reason for this, as far as I knew the executing of java byte code is handled by the JVM and I still had the same JVM after I switched. Other t...
I like LaTeX, but I find its macro system and logic both complex and weak. languages such as Schem/Lisp/Clojure are very good at macros. I imagine the entire document written in a lisp family language, which, when run, would emit LaTeX code and produce a document. Has this been done before? Any links?
I found many things when searching, but nothing that seemed both updated and complete. In last quarter of 2010 I remember reading what were very sad news for me, as WebSockets were disabled in most (if not all? can't remember) modern browsers that supported it by default due to security concerns in the proxy protocol t...
Is java used out of web and without GUI? To develop web applications you have to learn design stuff, html+css+javascript+ajax => it takes really a lot of time to learn it. Developing a GUI application also requires design skills. Is it possible to write something in pure java and what exactly?
I've seen that some of software systems have functionality of audit and log. Both of those functionality seem that they are just doing the same things - records all the users's actions behind the scene. There are respective tables of audit and log even exist in the database. If they are really doing the same things why...
Regardless of programming language(s) or operating system(s) used or the environment they develop for, what should every programmer know? Some background: I'm interested in becoming the best programmer I can. As part of this process I'm trying to understand what I don't know and would benefit me a lot if I did. While...
I always liked to ask myself "what's the first principle(s) of this?" after I learned the basic stuff of something (e.g. programming). It's an inspiring question, IMO, that can force you to think about the most important principle(s) behind something, especially a skill such as programming. So, what do you think is the...
Currently we have a Development server on which we write the HTML/CSS/JS code. We do not optimize our code using compressors/minifiers. So our deployment process from Development to Production is simply to copy the files on the Development server to the Production server. But now we are planning to use compressors/mini...
Google built a testing system that can infer which tests need to be run after a change. In their own words: ... we built a continuous integration system that uses dependency analysis to determine all the tests a change transitively affects and then runs only those tests for every change. ... Inspired by that, I have...
I work for a subsidiary of a large world wide company. This was not a subsidiary from the beginning, it was a company bought by the larger company. We seem to be heading toward a death march and I'm wondering if there is anything I (or my team) can do to either resolve the management problems or complete the project in...
Example: A file, representing a serialized version of an object, needs to be read and deserialized. It would simple to implement this if we only cared about a single serialization format, but many such formats exist (JSON, YAML, etc.). One way to handle this would be to create an abstract serializer type/interface with...
I'd really like to focus on why some new programming languages are adopted in the mainstream, and others remain relatively niche. I'd like to know about things like specific use cases, backwards compatibility, or some new features, simple or complex implementation difficulty. Specific examples would be appreciated, but...
I've been very interested in writing compilers but have been scared off by the complexity of it. I've finally took the plunge and started writing my first compiler and the language I picked is Brainf*ck as I think that it would relatively easy to implement and I could implement the full language. This brings me to a q...
I built a simple burn down chart with Google Spreadsheet, as shown below. The project consists of 99 tasks. And the user finished 5 tasks on the first day. So the "Actual Tasks Remaining" point is below the "Ideal Tasks Remaining" point on the first day, which is different from the burn down chart shown in the Wikiped...
Last year, me and three good old friends of mine founded a small web/mobile development team. Things are going pretty well. We're learning a lot, and new people are joining the group. Keeping knowledge always updated and in-sync is vital for us. Long emails threads are simply not the way to go for us: too dispersing an...
I'm trying to find a research answering a question: "How much time developers spend on development vs debugging?". I found several interesting links on the Net but they are little too old. This 2002 RTI study states that software bugs cost U.S. economy $59.6 billion annually. And in this book Beizer (1990) reports that...
I'm going to be developing some functionality that will crawl various public web sites and process/aggregate the data on them. Nothing sinister like looking for e-mail addresses - in fact it's something that might actually drive additional traffic to their sites. But I digress. Other than honouring robots.txt, are th...
i'm currently working on a project in my spare time (mostly 3-4 hours from monday to friday, and up to 6 hours on sundays) and i've found redmine very useful to hold a record of development tasks. However, there are some stuff, specially when you are trying to prototype or brainstorm a redesign of a set of related cla...
I have written a small library of classes in my preferred language (PHP, but it doesn't really matter), and typically use them in most of my projects. Until now, the projects have been personal, or small stuff at my part time job that isn't really a commercial product. Neither of these things worry me as far as the fr...
I have a question about whether we should use different Data access layers for different database providers like SQL Server, MySQL Server, Oracle etc.. Is it not better to use a single data access layer with the ORM or like mappings so that the database specific activities are taken care of with less coding than comple...
If 'explicit is better than implicit', why aren't there explicit access modifiers in Python: Public, Protected, Private, etc.? I know that the idea is that the programmer should know what to do through a hint - no need to use 'brute force'. But IMO 'Encapsulation' or 'information hiding' isn't just to keep people out,...
Some say that DBaaS (database as a service) -- aka cloud database -- is not suitable for Business Intelligence (BI), analytics (OLAP) or archiving. Is this true? More generally, when DBaaS is the most effective technical choice?
I am working on a large website and having been thinking a lot about when I should be using a 3rd party API/Library and when I should be writing my own implementation from scratch. There is no Library out there that would incorporate all the functionality I need for my site but there are a number of libraries that woul...
I am working on a Java application, and I see that Run time exceptions are handled in many places. For example, try { // do something } catch(NullPointerException e) { return null; } My questions is, when is it a good practice to handle Runtime exceptions? When should exceptions be left unhandled?
I'm interested in knowing what are the real difference (benefits and drawbacks) between the two types of python templating engines; XML (like Genshi or Kid) and a custom syntax (like Cheetah or Jinja2). I'm not looking for which is better, or a recommendation. I understand that no one solution will be perfect, and that...
Do you know that feeling when you just need to show off that new trick with Expressions or generalize three different procedures? This does not have to be on Architecture Astronaut scale and in fact may be helpful but I can't help but notice someone else would implement the same class or package in a more clear, straig...
We're actually using Mantis for our projects. Or should I say "we try to use". The problem with all bug trackers I know is that they're made by programmers, for programmers. So the design is non existent or totally absurd. Of course, as a programmer, I can use mantis without problem, but how useful is a bug tracker whe...
I will be putting together an application to automate an external web site/application. In some instances I will need to navigate the site as a user would (some links I need to follow cannot be predicted and must be parsed from a response) I am already using Html Agility Pack, and am aware of Tidy if that is needed. A...
I work for a company that has begun integrating embedded computer systems into our products that we manufacture. We have a pretty wide range of products and they are distributed across the globe. Additionally, we've designed a few integrated boards that can serve multiple purposes depending on the firmware that has b...
I have an application which does heavy autoloading, meaning, that only two classes are "included" directly. For every module tha the application has (total like 14 modules), that module defines an autoloader. However, I wanted to know if is too time expensive to load all classes using autoloaders and what could I do to...
Since I learned about the Spiral Model of software development, I've tried to apply it to the different projects I've been involved in. However, I'm starting to feel like it's really just compressing and iterating more rapidly through a traditional Waterfall Model. Even in each Spiral or Agile cycle, there are still s...
So I have a good handle on how to rapidly develop a GUI controlled application in .NET (not so much in Python, I've only used Tkinter). I want my code to be easily deployed with very few dependencies. It does however have to interface with a particular 3rd party software package that exposes a very difficult COM API ...
With the new world of rapid browser releases I am trying to figure out how to define & implement our browser compatibility process. Previously we would always support the latest major version of a browser plus one or two older major versions depending on the browser. When I say support, I mean we would proactively test...
Does there exist a software solution of some form that has the ability to map out the actions of calling a function. So what I mean is, let's say that we have the following class. public class Foo { public Foo() { if (this.SomeProperty) { DoSomething(); } } private void...
To me, Idiot Proofing just means making sure the user can't break a piece of software even if he tried. For instance, if a value is read from a text box, and is converted to a double, if the underlying software is idiot proof, it won't break if the user types in a non-double value. I recently wrote up a development ...
I received this response from Jeff while researching hit counters. He said page hits are incremented in a buffered write scheme, and that a views table does not exist. Can you explain what a buffered write scheme is, please? I would appreciate answers not too heavy with technical jargon. In particular I'm interested in...
Occasionally I see questions about edge cases and other weirdness on Stack Overflow that are easily answered by the likes of Jon Skeet and Eric Lippert, demonstrating a deep knowledge of the language and its many intricacies, like this one: You might think that in order to use a foreach loop, the collection you are ...
If I was interested in interview questions like "Describe how you explained a difficult technical issue to a non-technical person" I would use the Googles to search on communication skill interview questions.. But, what I really would like is to have someone actually explain to me some sort of relatively difficult tech...
This is a multi-part question. I am writing a computationally intensive program that will perform computations on very large numbers, on the scale of factorial(100) . I'm considering using Java or C++ (that's all I know, and C++ only slightly) but I'm not sure which would be better to use in this context. I know C++ w...
I'm working on my first game; a tower defense. So far It's coming along nicely. The only issue I am having (so far) is I can't figure out a way to effciently discover if an entity has entered a towers line of sight. So far I have considered just having every entity run though each known entity and calculate LOS, but th...
I often find myself wondering what programming best practices apply to solo programming, since most of the time, I'm the only programmer on a project. I just started experimenting with C# 4.0 Code Contracts, and I thought I'd ask the community what utility they may have for a solo programmer. Here's where I'm coming fr...
I see a lot of .NET job postings that list XML as a required skill. What should one be able to do in/with XML to have confidence that this requirement is satisfied? Modeling? Work with XPATH? Familiarity with serialization? What is specific to .NET?
In general, the more concise & flexible a language is the slower is the execution of programs written in this language. on the other side, the fast languages are mostly overly verbose, requiring you to write several lines just to output "hello world", which means harder development time and is more error prone. so the...
For the independent developers, or the weeknight/weekend developers, when you are about to begin a large/enterprise project, what are you first steps to take when hashing out the pre-coding details and designs? What are the tools you use? Do you find it easiest to keep with the traditional mechanical pencil and pad of...
Accordingly to the first paragraph of Joel's post, a Program Manager is a very good thing to have in products. But what about having a Program Manager for a company that doesn't have a product, but have projects? The only coincidence that I'd see if you ask me and ask me to answer right away is that a Program Manager ...
For the last couple of weeks I've been reading up and watching any resources I can find on CQRS. I really like the concept and am keen to start delving deeper. I have only found 2 major .NET frameworks for CQRS and I am trying to evaluate the differences between them. I am looking to implement CQRS on a noSql db, most ...
How much experience do you need in a language before you can put it on your resume? There is one language I'm in proficient in (Java) which I would definitely put on the resume but say I took I couple of semester courses in college which involved extensive programming in C or self-taught myself C# but have written no m...
We are planing to introduce Help Desk and Support Desk in our project. Our current development team would be divided into two smaller teams: Support Desk and Development team. Support Desk would be responsible only for bug fixing. Development team would be responsible for making enhancements and new features developmen...
We've had our old iOS developer drop out and we're looking for a new developer or a team to pick up where he has left off. I'm aware there can be issues with developers inheriting code etc. What are some questions that I can ask my old developer to better help the new developer understand what stage the code is at, wha...
Usually, there are a bunch of rules and best practices which help optimizing a website, bring new customers, and in general making user experience fast, smooth and pleasant while (sometimes) reducing the server load. Also, usually, the largest companies don't bother to use those best practices. Except for few companies...
I have a popular web-based app, and now suddenly my main developer has disappeared. Although I've found other great developers but I don't want to distribute the source code to everyone. Is there any way I can have them work on it while keeping the source code safe? Thanks
I often hear people say they "sanitize input," which would mean make it clean. I understand this to mean "clean of potentially damaging contents," where the function that does the sanitizing would do something like character escaping. But then I hear things like "sane input," which to me, means the input isn't a string...
I am wondering whether I should branch our installer script/project-file (we use InnoSetup) with each application release or whether I should keep one in installer script that generates the setup for all versions and branches. Background We use branches ("maintenance versions") heavily as our features are very custome...
Let's assume the following two assumptions are true. Your entire userbase has broadband access everywhere There is an imaginary browser X that implements the entire draft specification of the HTML5 and WHATWG groups, consistently and all users use browser X. What are the intrinsic limitations of a commercial public H...
I was looking for an Intel alternative to MASS IBM libraries (Mathematical Acceleration Subsystem). I know Intel implements MKL libraries, but I d'nt know if there is a specific Math acceleration library in it.
I have searched for the full form of "OOPS" in Google, but unfortunately, there are many ambiguous answers. Some say it's "Systems", and some say it's "Structure", and some have even mentioned it as "Synopsis". Can anybody please enlighten me, to find the full form of OOPS, with some proper & correct reference? Many th...
So I have this 'great' idea in my head that I want to start working on and build a company around it. Been working on desktop development for 5+ years and the idea revolves around the web. My exposure to web development is purely academic(a few database driven websites etc). I know I have the wherewithal to get starte...
From Wikipedia: In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. In software engineering, a design pattern is a general reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem in software design. By description (assu...
Question should be clear from its title. For example Apache saves its access and error logs in files instead of RDBMS no matter on how large or small scale it is being utilized. For RDMS we just have to write SQL queries and it will do the work while for files we must decide a particular format and then write regex or ...
A similar question asks whether a computer can learn to play optimally in chess by analyzing thousands of games. If a machine can look at the state of the board for a few games of chess (or a few games of checkers) in the beginning and after each move, can it be programmed to learn the rules of the game? If it can, to ...
I'm thinking about limiting the rights of users who choose insecure passwords (insecurity of a password being determined by length, how many types of characters (upper/lower case, numbers, symbols, etc.) are used, and whether it can be located in a rainbow table) to limit how much damage their account can do if comprom...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext: Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references (hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other...
I want to explain why the specification must not be changed during development period to the new planning department employee.