Search Results

Search found 6442 results on 258 pages for 'beginner programmer'.

Page 194/258 | < Previous Page | 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201  | Next Page >

• Why do programmers write closed source applications and then make them free? [closed]

  - by Ken

  As an entrepreneur/programmer who makes a good living from writing and selling software, I'm dumbfounded as to why developers write applications and then put them up on the Internet for free. You've found yourself in one of the most lucrative fields in the world. A business with 99% profit margin, where you have no physical product but can name your price; a business where you can ship a buggy product and the customer will still buy it. Occasionally some of our software will get a free competitor, and I think, this guy is crazy. He could be making a good living off of this but instead chose to make it free. Do you not like giant piles of money? Are you not confident that people would pay for it? Are you afraid of having to support it? It's bad for the business of programming because now customers expect to be able to find a free solution to every problem. (I see tweets like "is there any good FREE software for XYZ? or do I need to pay $20 for that".) It's also bad for customers because the free solutions eventually break (because of a new OS or what have you) and since it's free, the developer has no reason to fix it. Customers end up with free but stale software that no longer works and never gets updated. Customer cries. Developer still working day job cries in their cubicle. What gives? PS: I'm not looking to start an open-source/software should be free kind of debate. I'm talking about when developers make a closed source application and make it free.

  Read the article

• Multiplayer online game engine/pipeline

  - by Slav

  I am implementing online multiplayer game where client must be written in AS3 (Flash) to embed game into browser and server in C++ (abstract part of which is already written and used with other games). Networking models may differ from each other, but currently I'm looking toward game's logic run on both client and server parts but they're written on different languages while it's not the main problem. My previous game (pretty big one - was implemented with efforts of ~5 programmers in 1.5 years) was mainly "written" within electronic tables as structured objects with implemented inheritance: was written standalone tool which generated AS3 and C++ (languages of platforms to which the game was published) using specified electronic tables file (.xls or .ods). That file contained ~50 tables with ~50 rows and ~50 columns each and was mainly written by game designers which do not know any programming languages. But that game was single-player. Having declared problem with my currently implementing MMO, I'm looking toward some vast pipeline, where will be resolved such problems like: game objects descriptions (which starships exist within game, how much HP they have, how fast move, what damage deal...) actions descriptions (what players or NPCs can do: attack each other, collect resources, build structures, move, teleport, cast spells) - actions are transmitted through server between clients influences (what happens when specified action applied on specified object, e.i "Ship A attacked Ship B: field "HP" of Ship B reduced by amount of field "damage" of Ship A" Influences can be much more difficult, yes, e.i. "damage is twice it's size when Ship has =5 allies around him in a 200 units range during night" and so on. If to be able to write such logic within some "design document" it will be easily possible to: let designers to do their job without programmer's intervention or any bug-prone programming validate described logic transfer (transform, convert) to any programming language where it will be executed Did somebody worked on something like that? Is there some tools/engines/pipelines which concernes with it? How to handle all of this problems simultaneously in a best way or do I properly imagine my tasks and problems to myself?

  Read the article

• How can I make myself better at programming working at a shi* job ?

  - by Scrooge

  I recently graduated with an Engineering degree in Computer Science, but my employer (a mid-sized software company) is not using my logical and programming skills. I want to move to a better opportunity but how do I do that since my experience here is not going to count as much? How do I get a better programming job? The worst part is that I am still reading from books (and not writing code myself) even after I have started working. They are paying me a standard entry level Indian IT job rate but I really dont care. It's not worth it. Please advise as to how I can do something worthwhile. (I have studied C++; Core Java; Ruby On Rails ..made a couple of academic projects but no relevant practical real world experience). Just to make things easier .. let me list a few basic queries How I get better at programming without a good project at my company? Please suggest projects where I can learn to write practical code (platform doesn't matter) Best place to take part in open source development? Is it possible that I earn slightly more while I learn? (apart from my sh** job I mean) What kind of practical projects are best suited for me? (ie for an entry level programmer)

  Read the article

• Who should be the architect in an agile project?

  - by woni

  We are developing the agile way for a few months now and I have some troubles understanding the agile manifesto as interpreted by my colleagues. The project we are developing is a framework for future projects and will be reused many times in the next years. Code is only written to fulfill the needs of the current user story. The product owner tells us what to do, but not how to do it. What would be right, in my opinion, because he is not implicitly a programmer. The project advanced and in my eyes it messed up a little bit. After I recognized an assembly that was responsible for 3 concerns (IoC-Container, communication layer and project internal things), I tried to address this to my colleagues. They answered that this would be the result of applying YAGNI, because know one told them to respect that functionalities have to be split up in different assemblies for further use. In my opinion no one has to tell us that we should respect the Separation of Concerns principle. On the other side, they mentioned to prefer YAGNI over SoC because it is less effort to implement and therefore faster and cheaper. We had changing requirements a lot at the beginning of the project and ended up in endless refactoring sessions, because to much has to be adapted. Is it better to make such rather simple design decisions up front, even there is no need in the current situation, or do we have to change a lot in the later progress of the project?

  Read the article

• What's a way to implement a flexible buff/debuff system?

  - by gkimsey

  Overview: Lots of games which RPG-like statistics allow for character "buffs", ranging from simple "Deal 25% extra damage" to more complicated things like "Deal 15 damage back to attackers when hit." The specifics of each type of buff aren't really relevant. I'm looking for a (presumably object-oriented) way to handle arbitrary buffs. Details: In my particular case, I have multiple characters in a turn-based battle environment, so I envisioned buffs being tied to events like "OnTurnStart", "OnReceiveDamage", etc. Perhaps each buff is a subclass of a main Buff abstract class, where only the relevant events are overloaded. Then each character could have a vector of buffs currently applied. Does this solution make sense? I can certainly see dozens of event types being necessary, it feels like making a new subclass for each buff is overkill, and it doesn't seem to allow for any buff "interactions". That is, if I wanted to implement a cap on damage boosts so that even if you had 10 different buffs which all give 25% extra damage, you only do 100% extra instead of 250% extra. And there's more complicated situations that ideally I could control. I'm sure everyone can come up with examples of how more sophisticated buffs can potentially interact with each other in a way that as a game developer I may not want. As a relatively inexperienced C++ programmer (I generally have used C in embedded systems), I feel like my solution is simplistic and probably doesn't take full advantage of the object-oriented language. Thoughts? Has anyone here designed a fairly robust buff system before?

  Read the article

• How to procedurally (create) grow an artistic (2D) tree in real-time (L-System?).

  - by lalan

  Recently I programmed an L-system module, It got me interested further. I am a Plants vs Zombies junkie as well, really liked the concept of Tree of Wisdom. Would love to create similar procedural art just for fun and learn more. Question: How should I approach the process of creating an artistic tree (2d perhaps with fixed camera/perspective) dynamically? Ideally I would like to start with a plant (only a stem with a leaf) and grow it dynamically using some influence (input/user action) over its structure. These influences may result in different type of branching, curves in branches, its spread, location of fruits, color of flowers, etc. Want it to be really full of life/spirit. :) Plants vs Zombies: Tree of wisdom It would be great to dynamically grow a similar tree, but with lot more variation and animations happening. My Background: Student / Programmer, have used few game engines (Ogre3d, cocos2d, unity). Haven't really programmed directly using openGL, trying to fix that :). I am ready to spend considerable time, Please let me know about the APIs? and how would an expert like you would take on this problem? Why 2D? I think it's easier to solve the problem only considering 2 dimensions. Artistic inspirations: Only the tree, with fruits and leaves, without the shrubs at the bottom The large tree (visible branches, green leaves, flowers, fruits, etc) on the left, behind monkey. PixelJunk's Eden (Art style inspiration). Procedurally Generated Apple Tree using Fractals Please let me know if it was easy for you to understand the question, I may elaborate further. I hope a discussion of various approach would be helpful for everyone. You guys are awesome.

  Read the article

• What are some efficient ways to set up my environment when working on a remote site?

  - by Prefix

  Hello fellow Programmers, I am still a relatively new programmer and have recently gotten my first on-campus programming position. I am the sole dev responsible for 8 domains as well as 3 small sized PHP web apps. The campus has its web environment divided into staging and live servers -- we develop on the staging via SFTP and then push the updates to the live server through a web GUI. I use Sublime Text 2 and the Sublime SFTP plugin currently for all my dev work (its my preferred editor). If I am just making an edit to a page I'll open that individual file via the ftp browser. If I am working on the PHP web app projects, I have the app directory mapped to a local folder so that when I save locally the file is auto-uploaded through Sublime SFTP. I feel like this workflow is slow and sub-optimal. How can I improve my workflow for working with remote content? I'd love to set up a local environment on my machine as that would eliminate the constant SFTP upload/download, but as I said there are many sites and the space required for a local copy of the entire domain would be quite large and complex; not to mention keeping it updated with whatever the latest on the staging server is would be a nightmare. Anyone know how I can improve my general web dev workflow from what I've described? I'd really like to cut out constantly editing over FTP but I'm not sure where to start other than ripping the entire directory and dumping it into XAMP.

  Read the article

• Abstract Factory Method and Polymorphism

  - by Scotty C.

  Being a PHP programmer for the last couple of years, I'm just starting to get into advanced programming styles and using polymorphic patterns. I was watching a video on polymorphism the other day, and the guy giving the lecture said that if at all possible, you should get rid of if statements in your code, and that a switch is almost always a sign that polymorphism is needed. At this point I was quite inspired and immediately went off to try out these new concepts, so I decided to make a small caching module using a factory method. Of course the very first thing I have to do is create a switch to decide what file encoding to choose. DANG! class Main { public static function methodA($parameter='') { switch ($parameter) { case 'a': $object = new \name\space\object1(); break; case 'b': $object = new \name\space\object2(); break; case 'c': $object = new \name\space\object3(); break; default: $object = new \name\space\object1(); } return (sekretInterface $object); } } At this point I'm not really sure what to do. As far as I can tell, I either have to use a different pattern and have separate methods for each object instance, or accept that a switch is necessary to "switch" between them. What do you guys think?

  Read the article

• TDD with SQL and data manipulation functions

  - by Xophmeister

  While I'm a professional programmer, I've never been formally trained in software engineering. As I'm frequently visiting here and SO, I've noticed a trend for writing unit tests whenever possible and, as my software gets more complex and sophisticated, I see automated testing as a good idea in aiding debugging. However, most of my work involves writing complex SQL and then processing the output in some way. How would you write a test to ensure your SQL was returning the correct data, for example? Then, say if the data wasn't under your control (e.g., that of a 3rd party system), how can you efficiently test your processing routines without having to hand write reams of dummy data? The best solution I can think of is making views of the data that, together, cover most cases. I can then join those views with my SQL to see if it's returning the correct records and manually process the views to see if my functions, etc. are doing what they're supposed to. Still, it seems excessive and flakey; particularly finding data to test against...

  Read the article

• As a developer, how do I learn sales? [closed]

  - by Dan Abramov

  I quit the company I was working for to pursuit an opportunity as a startup, and I believe in our product. I'm sure it's going to be great if we attract some customers first to keep going. (I don't want funding.) Our product is targeted at private schools and courses, and helps organize the mess other LMSs introduce. The problem is, our team is basically just me and I have very little idea about sales and marketing. I can do reasonably good copywriting but I'm sure I can do better—and being nervous or too techy in a real world conversation with the client doesn't help. I want to get better, in fact, a lot better at negotiating with clients and pitching my product. I did look for some “sales articles” on the web, and a lot of what I found is plain bullshit on SEO-engineered websites promoting books or $5000 courses. What I need instead is a developer's perspective on how to sale a product you think is great. What are typical programmer's mistakes and misconceptions about sales, and how to avoid them? How do you evolve into a reasonably great salesman? I can't believe it's in the mindset and unlearnable. Your own experience, combined with great articles available on the web is most welcome. To Future Readers The question got closed because it is not a good fit for this site. I found some helpful tips in a similar question asked on a sister StackExchange site about startups: I'm a terrible salesperson. What can I do about it?

  Read the article

• Any mates have same plan as me. Focust on tech whole life, no wife, no kids [closed]

  - by Anders Lind

  I am about 30 years old, c++ programmer. Kernel hacker. Living in east coast US. Day by day, night by night. I am in front of my monitor, typing code on my hhkb, scratching idea on my notebook. In my spare time, I play piano sometimes. Go to some classical concert once a month. Basically having a happy life. One concern is I dont have gf. I dont have wife nor kids. My parents start to worry about this. Occasionally they will ask my status. they wont tell me to do anything. But I can see their worries. So, my question is, is my life normal? How many mates think same as me? (I only know rms is single, has no kids, and having a happy life. But I am way worse than him. compare to him, I am nothing. If I am as successful as him. I won;t ask this question here.)

  Read the article

• December 2012 OTN Member Offers

  - by Cassandra Clark - OTN

  Our partners have answered the special offer call just in time for you to either shop for the tech professional in your life or share the list below with someone who keeps asking you what you want for the holidays.  Go right to the Oracle Technology Network Member Discount Page or read on for more details. Oracle  Store has extended their 10% Savings through December 31st 2012.Oracle Press - Oracle Technology Network members get 40% off the latest Oracle Press book by Oracle ACE Directors Ben Prusinski and Gustavo Gonzalez, Oracle E-Business Suite Financials Handbook, Third Edition in print and ebook format. CRC Press - Has added 3 NEW titles!  Get 20% off the below title at checkout. Secure Java: For Web Application Development Open Source Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence Developing Essbase Applications: Advanced Techniques for Finance and IT Professional Oracle Embedded Programming and Application Development Packt Publishing - Get 25% off the print books and get 35% off the eBooks listed below. You will need to be logged in for the discounts to apply at checkout and codes expire December 31st 2012. Getting Started with Oracle Data Integrator 11g: A Hands-On Tutorial Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g: A Hands-On Tutorial Oracle Certified Associate, Java SE 7 Programmer Study Guide Safari Online-  Give the Gift of Knowledge This Holiday SeasonGive your friends and colleagues the gift of Safari Books Online! With an ever-expanding library of books and videos from more than 100 publishers (including Oracle Press), a subscription to Safari Books Online is the gift that always fits, helping your friends learn new skills and stay current. Starting at $42.99, gift subscriptions are available for 1, 3, 6 and 12 months. Get all of this and more at the Oracle Technology Network Member Discount Page!

  Read the article

• I've been told that Exceptions should only be used in exceptional cases. How do I know if my case is exceptional?

  - by tieTYT

  My specific case here is that the user can pass in a string into the application, the application parses it and assigns it to structured objects. Sometimes the user may type in something invalid. For example, their input may describe a person but they may say their age is "apple". Correct behavior in that case is roll back the transaction and to tell the user an error occurred and they'll have to try again. There may be a requirement to report on every error we can find in the input, not just the first. In this case, I argued we should throw an exception. He disagreed, saying, "Exceptions should be exceptional: It's expected that the user may input invalid data, so this isn't an exceptional case" I didn't really know how to argue that point, because by definition of the word, he seems to be right. But, it's my understanding that this is why Exceptions were invented in the first place. It used to be you had to inspect the result to see if an error occurred. If you failed to check, bad things could happen without you noticing. Without exceptions every level of the stack needs to check the result of the methods they call and if a programmer forgets to check in one of these levels, the code could accidentally proceed and save invalid data (for example). Seems more error prone that way. Anyway, feel free to correct anything I've said here. My main question is if someone says Exceptions should be exceptional, how do I know if my case is exceptional?

  Read the article

• How to add a new developer to the team

  - by lortabac

  I run a small company composed of only 2 developers. For one of our clients we are building a very big application, whose development has gone on for 1.5 years. Now this client has found an important sponsorship, and they are organizing some events related to this project, so we have a deadline in 2 months and we can't miss it. We are thinking of adding a new developer to the team, and I am wondering what we can do to help his integration. This is the situation: We are approaching the threshhold of Brooks's law, the point when adding new developers will be counter-productive. The application is relatively well designed, but the implementation is chaotic in some points (especially older code). There are unit tests only for more recent code. When this project started, we didn't have the habit of doing tests. Documentation and comments are incomplete. The application is both large and complex. The client has written down almost every detail about his project, in a very clear and "programmer-friendly" way. Is it a good idea to add a person now? If so, what can we do in order to help the new developer integrate into the team?

  Read the article

• Flash Player for IPTV

  - by Le Mystique

  Hi All, We have to design a flash player for three video sources of IPTV. Educational videos on the system that can be played on demand. (VOD or Video on Demand local) Streaming videos available on different websites that can be played on demand (VOD or Video on Demand remote) IPTV live streaming video feed Videos from three sources have to be played within single flash player that we need to design. There are 2 basic requirements: For the two VOD types, we have to provide the pause and play functionality. For IPTV, pause and play is not required, However, channel switching time is critically important here. The user should get the program behaviour as close to TV experience as possible. This means channel switching should be fast. To provide this, buffering of video is required for multiple channels. Now the questions is, is this possible? If yes, how? Secondly, what skill set (e.g. action script 3.0 , flash 10) should the flash programmer have to be able to design this? Thirdly is it as simple as making a normal FLV player? Or is it a more complex job?

  Read the article

• Dynamic model interactions

  - by Richard

  I am just curious as to how in many games (namely games like arkham asylum/city, manhunt, hitman) do they make it so that your character can "grab" a character in front of you and do stuff to them. I know this may sound very confusing but for an example go to youtube and search "hitman executions", and the first video is an example of what i'm asking. Basically I'm wondering how they make your model dynamically interact with whatever other model you come across, so in hitman when you come up behind some one with the fibre wire you strangle the other character or if you have the anesthetic you come up behind some person and put your hand over there mouth while they struggle and slowly go to the floor where you lay them down. I am confused as to whether it was animated to use two models using specific bone/skeletal identifiers, if it is just two completely separate animations that are played at the correct time to make it look like they are actually interacting or something else all together. I am not an animator so i assume most of what i just said is not right but i hope that some one can understand what i mean and provide an answer. PS) I am a programmer and I am in the process of building a hitmanesque game, just because i love that style of game and I want to increase my skills on something fun, so if you do know what i'm talking about have some examples with involving both models and programming (i use c++ and mainly Ogre3D at the moment but i am getting into unity and XNA) i would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

  Read the article

• Developing wheel reinventing tendencies into a skill as opposed to reluctantly learning wheel-finding skills? [duplicate]

  - by Korey Hinton

  This question already has an answer here: Is reinventing the wheel really all that bad? 20 answers I am more of a high-level wheel reinventor. I definitely prefer to make use of existing API features built into a language and popular third-party frameworks that I know can solve the problem, however when I have a particular problem that I feel capable of solving within a reasonable time I am very reluctant to find someone else's solution. Here are a few reasons why I reinvent: It takes time to learn a new API API restrictions might exist that I don't know about Avoiding re-work of unfamiliar code I am conflicted between doing what I know and shifting to a new technique I don't feel comfortable with. On one hand I feel like following my instincts and getting really good at solving problems, especially ones that I would never challenge myself with if all I did was try to find answers. And on the other hand I feel like I might be missing out on important skills like saving time by finding the right framework and expanding my knowledge by learning how to use a new framework. I guess my question comes down to this: My current attitude is to stick to the built-in API and APIs I know well* and to not spend my time searching github for a solution to a problem I know I can solve myself within a reasonable amount of time. Is that a reasonable balance for a successful programmer? *Obviously I will still look around for new frameworks that save time and solve/simplify difficult problems.

  Read the article

• Advanced PHP book [closed]

  - by Aaditi Sharma

  I've gone and stumbled across a lot of recommendations for PHP books, including on SO, however could not find a reasonable & convincible answer for this. Is there a really good advanced book for PHP. Background: I've done almost 8 months in PHP. I know the basics. I go through php.net very often. I've played around with Codeigniter, amongst other frameworks. I've been doing JavaScript for almost 2 years, and specifically thank Douglas Crockford for this, I completely changed the way I code JavaScript. I spend a lot of time travelling, and would love to read a book about PHP, that includes the awesome parts and even when something doesn't quite work in PHP. (As a note a lot of previous answers on SO and programmers give varied results.) I have to place an order through a library which has it's limitations. One book that some of experienced PHP programmers could recommend would be helpful. I have gone through http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1711/what-is-the-single-most-influential-book-every-programmer-should-read and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/194812/list-of-freely-available-programming-books, which do NOT have books related to PHP.

  Read the article

• Do you keep your ideas secret? and why?

  - by MainMa

  I believe any programmer has several ideas that she/he considers as innovative or at least valuable. It may be an idea of a new product which will make this world better or a new development approach, etc. But a great idea must be implemented and promoted/advertised. This requires a lot of work (proofs of concept, prototypes, technology previews, etc.) and a lot of money (appropriate advertisement, marketing, etc.). So months later, the idea stays in our heads, but nothing else is done, because it's difficult, long and expensive, sometimes even impossible for a single developer. On the other hand, it would be painful to share our ideas, and see a medium-size company which has enough resources making something useful from it and having success and money. So what do you do with your ideas you can hardly implement or patent? Do you talk freely about them in discussion boards and with other developers? Do you keep them like a precious thing without never talking about them to anybody? If you keep your ideas, why are you doing so? Is it just because you hope that one day, you will be able to implement them and have a huge success, while you know very well by experience that it's an utopia?

  Read the article

• Reaching Intermediate Programming Status

  - by George Stocker

  I am a software engineer that's had positions programming in VBA (though I dare not consider that 'real' experience, as it was trial and error!), Perl w/ CGI, C#, and ASP.NET. The latter two are post-undergraduate, with my entrance into the 'real world'. I'm 2 years out of college, and have had 5 years of experience (total) across the languages I've mentioned. However, when it comes to my resume, I can only put 2 years down for C#, and less than a year down for ASP.NET. I feel like I know C#, but I still have to spend time going 'What does this method do?', whereas some of the more senior level engineers can immediately say, "Oh, Method X does this, without ever having looked at that method before." So I know empirically that there's a gulf there, but I'm not exactly sure how to bridge it. I've started programming in Project Euler, and I picked up a book on design patterns, but I still feel like I spend each day treading water, instead of moving forward. That isn't to say that I don't feel like I've made progress, it just means that as far as I come each day, I still see the mountain top way off in the distance. My question is this: How did you overcome this plateau? How long did it take you? What methods can you suggest to assist me in this? I've read through Code Complete, The Mythical Man Month, and CLR via C#, 2nd edition -- my question is: What do I do now? Edit: I just found this question on projects for an intermediate level programmer. I think it adds to the discussion (though it does not supplant my question). As such, I'm adding it to the question as a "For More Information".

  Read the article

• How to cut the line between quality and time?

  - by m3th0dman

  On one hand, I have been taught by various software engineering books ([1] as example) that my job as a programmer is to make the best possible software: great design, flexibility, to be easily maintained etc. One the other hand although I realize that I actually write software for money and not for entertainment, although is very nice to write good code and plan ahead and refactor after writing and ... I wonder if it is always best for the business (after all we should be responsible). Is the business always benefiting from a best code? Maybe I'm over-engineering something, and it's not always useful? So how should I know when to stop in the process to achieving the best possible code? I am sure that experience is something that makes a difference here, but I believe this cannot be the only answer. [1] Uncle Bob's in Clean Code says at page 6 about the fact that: They [managers] may defend the schedule and requirements with passion; but that’s their job. It’s your job to defend the code with equal passion.

  Read the article

• Which pattern is best for large project

  - by shamim

  I have several years of software development experience, but I am not a keen and adroit programmer, to perform better I need helping hands. Recently I engaged in an ERP project. For this project want a very effective structure, which will be easily maintainable and have no compromise about performance issue. Below structures are now present in my old projects. Entity Layer BusinessLogic Layer. DataLogic Layer UI Layer. Bellow picture describe how they are internally connected. For my new project want to change my project structure, I want to follow below steps: Core Layer(common) BLL DAL Model UI Bellow picture describe how they are internally connected. Though goggling some initial type question’s are obscure to me, they are : For new project want to use Entity framework, is it a good idea? Will it increase my project performance? Will it more maintainable than previous structure? Entity Framework core disadvantages/benefits are? For my project need help to select best structure. Will my new structure be better than the old one?

  Read the article

• Graduating soon with a computer science degree, but have unique circumstances [closed]

  - by Donnie

  I joined the Navy in 1998, and was admitted into Nuclear Power Training. I got my electrician's mate certificate, but was put on medical hold when I was in Nuclear Power Training. I was sent to the Naval Hospital, and received a medical (honorable) discharge in the middle of 2000. I decided to stay at home and raise my son, and my girlfriend worked. a few years ago, I decided that I want to work as a programmer, so I went to college and will soon be graduating with a degree in computer science. I hope to finish with a relatively high GPA, 3.8 or 3.9. My question is this: How much, if any, of my Navy experience should I put on my resume? And how do I explain my nine year gap as a stay at home dad? Do I even try to explain it? I know recent college graduates typically have no experience, but obviously I'm not the typical college graduate. Will my long absence from working, or my relatively short duration in the Navy hurt my chances? Should I just put the college on my resume, and hope that HR thinks I'm younger than I am? Obviously, then, my age would show at the interview and there would be questions. Any help is appreciated.

  Read the article

• 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)?

  Read the article

• Tech Article: Tired of Null Pointer Exceptions? Use Java SE 8's Optional!

  - by Tori Wieldt

  A wise man once said you are not a real Java programmer until you've dealt with a null pointer exception. The null reference is the source of many problems because it is often used to denote the absence of a value. Java SE 8 introduces a new class called java.util.Optional that can alleviate some of these problems. In the tech article "Tired of Null Pointer Exceptions? Use Java SE 8's Optional!" Java expert Raoul-Gabriel Urma shows you how to make your code more readable and protect it against null pointer exceptions. Urma explains "The purpose of Optional is not to replace every single null reference in your codebase but rather to help design better APIs in which—just by reading the signature of a method—users can tell whether to expect an optional value. In addition, Optional forces you to actively unwrap an Optional to deal with the absence of a value; as a result, you protect your code against unintended null pointer exceptions." Learn how to go from writing painful nested null checks to writing declarative code that is composable, readable, and better protected from null pointer exceptions. Read "Tired of Null Pointer Exceptions? Use Java SE 8's Optional!"

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201  | Next Page >