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• You know you're a "version control avoider" if [closed]

  - by kmote

  I'm in the process of trying to introduce Version/Revision Control to a team of developers who have never used it. I'll be giving a presentation that I hope will be a persuasive explanation of the importance of Version Control -- the benefits of using it and the liabilities of avoiding it. I'd like to kick it off with an amusing but instructive list modelled after the "redneck" line of jokes. Can anyone help me add to this list? "You know you're a Version Control Avoider if..." You have a bunch of files or folders with names like Engine_05212012_works_old[2].cpp You've had to explain to your boss how you accidentally overwrote production code. I don't consider myself terribly witty, but I think a little humor could be helpful in this situation. Any ideas for how to extend this list? [Bonus points if you can suggest a better moniker than "Version Control Avoider"]

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• getting started as a web developer [closed]

  - by kmote

  I have over 10 years of programming experience building (Windows-based) desktop applications and utilities (VC++, C#, Python). My goal over the next year is to start transitioning to web application development. I want to teach myself the fundamental tools and technologies that would be considered essential for building professional, online, interactive, visually-stunning, data-driven web apps -- the kind described in Google's recently released "Field Guide: Building Great Web Applications". So my question is, what are the primary, most commonly-used technologies that seasoned professionals will need in their tool belt in the coming years? My plan was to start coming up to speed in Javascript, HTML5, & CSS, and then to do a deep dive into ASP.NET and Ajax, along with SQL DBs. (I was surprised to not be able to find a single book at Amazon with a broad, general scope like this, which caused me to start second-guessing this approach.) So, seasoned professionals: am I on the right track? Are there some glaring omissions in my list? Or some unnecessary inclusions? I would welcome any book suggestions along these lines as well.

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• I've inherited 200K lines of spaghetti code -- what now?

  - by kmote

  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 written in a virtually obsolete language: G2 -- think Pascal with graphics). The program itself is a physical model of a complex chemical processing plant; the team that wrote it have incredibly deep domain knowledge but little or no formal training in programming fundamentals. They've recently learned some hard lessons about the consequences of non-existant configuration management. Their maintenance efforts are also greatly hampered by the vast accumulation of undocumented "sludge" in the code itself. I will spare you the "politics" of the situation (there's always politics!), but suffice to say, there is not a consensus of opinion about what is needed for the path ahead. They have asked me to begin presenting to the team some of the principles of modern software development. They want me to introduce some of the industry-standard practices and strategies regarding coding conventions, lifecycle management, high-level design patterns, and source control. Frankly, it's a fairly daunting task and I'm not sure where to begin. Initially, I'm inclined to tutor them in some of the central concepts of The Pragmatic Programmer, or Fowler's Refactoring ("Code Smells", etc). I also hope to introduce a number of Agile methodologies. But ultimately, to be effective, I think I'm going to need to hone in on 5-7 core fundamentals; in other words, what are the most important principles or practices that they can realistically start implementing that will give them the most "bang for the buck". So that's my question: What would you include in your list of the most effective strategies to help straighten out the spaghetti (and prevent it in the future)?

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• Is 500 million lines of code even remotely possible? [on hold]

  - by kmote

  The New York Times is reporting that the Healthcare.gov website contains "about 500 million lines of software code." This number, attributed to "one specialist", and widely repeated across the interwebs, seems incredibly far-fetched (even assuming a large fraction of that number includes standard libraries). If this is an accurate estimate, it would truly be staggering (as this fascinating infographic vividly reveals). I realize StackExchange:Programmers isn't Snopes.com, but I'd like to find out if anyone here believes this is even remotely possible. I'd like to know if there is a plausible system of accounting (using examples from publicly available data, if possible) that could lead someone to conclude that such an estimate is within the realm of reason. How could a codebase (by any measure) sum up to such an exhorbitant number of code lines?

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• using BOOST_FOREACH with std::map

  - by kmote

  I'd like to iterate over a std::map using BOOST_FOREACH and edit the values. I can't quite get it. typedef std::pair<int, int> IdSizePair_t; std::map<int,int> mmap; mmap[1] = 1; mmap[2] = 2; mmap[3] = 3; BOOST_FOREACH( IdSizePair_t i, mmap ) i.second++; // mmap should contain {2,3,4} here Of course this doesn't change anything because I'm not iterating by reference. So I substitute this line instead (as per the example in the Boost docs): BOOST_FOREACH( IdSizePair_t &i, mmap ) and I get the compiler error: error C2440: 'initializing' : cannot convert from 'std::pair<_Ty1,_Ty2>' to 'IdSizePair_t &' with [ _Ty1=const int, _Ty2=int ] Any suggestions?

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