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  • Being stupid to get better productivity?

    - by loki2302
    I've spent a lot of time reading different books about "good design", "design patterns", etc. I'm a big fan of the SOLID approach and every time I need to write a simple piece of code, I think about the future. So, if implementing a new feature or a bug fix requires just adding three lines of code like this: if(xxx) { doSomething(); } It doesn't mean I'll do it this way. If I feel like this piece of code is likely to become larger in the nearest future, I'll think of adding abstractions, moving this functionality somewhere else and so on. The goal I'm pursuing is keeping average complexity the same as it was before my changes. I believe, that from the code standpoint, it's quite a good idea - my code is never long enough, and it's quite easy to understand the meanings for different entities, like classes, methods, and relations between classes and objects. The problem is, it takes too much time, and I often feel like it would be better if I just implemented that feature "as is". It's just about "three lines of code" vs. "new interface + two classes to implement that interface". From a product standpoint (when we're talking about the result), the things I do are quite senseless. I know that if we're going to work on the next version, having good code is really great. But on the other side, the time you've spent to make your code "good" may have been spent for implementing a couple of useful features. I often feel very unsatisfied with my results - good code that only can do A is worse than bad code that can do A, B, C, and D. Are there any books, articles, blogs, or your ideas that may help with developing one's "being stupid" approach?

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  • Web dev/programmer with 4.5 yrs experience. Better for career: self-study or master's degree? [closed]

    - by Anonymous Programmer
    I'm a 28 year-old web developer/programmer with 4.5 years of experience, and I'm looking to jump-start my career. I'm trying to decide between self-study and a 1-year master's program in CS at a top school. I'm currently making 65K in a high cost-of-living area that is NOT a hot spot for technology firms. I code almost exclusively in Ruby/Rails, PHP/CodeIgniter, SQL, and JavaScript. I've slowly gained proficiency with Git. Roughly half the time I am architecting/coding, and half the time I am pounding out HTML/CSS for static brochureware sites. I'd like to make more more money while doing more challenging/interesting work, but I don't know where to start. I have an excellent academic record (math major with many CS credits, 3.9+ GPA), GRE scores, and recommendations, so I am confident that I could be admitted to a great CS master's program. On the other hand, there is the tuition and opportunity cost to consider. I feel like there are a number of practical languages/tools/skills worth knowing that I could teach myself - shell scripting, .NET, Python, Node.js, MongoDB, natural language processing techniques, etc. That said, it's one thing to read about a subject and another thing to have experience with it, which structured coursework provides. So, on to the concrete questions: What programming skills/knowledge should I develop to increase my earning potential and make me competitive for more interesting jobs? Will a master's degree in CS from a top school help me develop the above skills/knowledge, and if so, is it preferable to self-study (possibly for other reasons, e.g., the degree's value as a credential)?

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  • Personal/career objectives tracker

    - by scottyab
    Looking for a simple, clean and easy to use personal/career objectives tracker for my team of ~10 developers something like what remember the milk is for tasks. At the moment I track these in a google doc, but ideally like a system where I can browse the teams objectives, add a team objective and it automatically appear on members personal objectives. Also where team members can add/manage their own objectives, browse colleges public/team objectives. Ideally it would also have option for people to add personal out side of work objectives for personal dev projects. Anyone used a tool to do this? our a combination of existing tools like gdocs, rtm?

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  • Shoring up deficiencies in a "home grown" programmer?

    - by JohnP
    I started out by teaching myself BASIC on a Vic 20, and in college (mid 80's) I had Fortran, Pascal, limited C, machine and assembler (With a smattering of COBOL). I didn't touch programming from approx 1989 to 1999. At that point, I was lucky enough to get hired as a Clipper programmer. Took me about 6 months to learn most of it, and by now (13 yrs) I'm pretty expert in it. I have also picked up Cold Fusion, some C#, some ASP, SQL, etc. I know programming structures, but in most languages I'm missing the esoterics, and I know my code could be much tighter. The problem is that I've learned what I needed to, to get the job done. This results in a lot of gaps in practical knowledge. I am also missing out on a TON of theory. Things like SRP, Refactoring, etc are alien terms. (Although I grok the intent after a short read). In addition, I am in the position now of teaching junior programmers the company and our software, and I don't want to pass on the knowledge gaps. I know this is somewhat of a subjective question and may be closed, but how do you go back and pick up what you've missed?

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  • Is looking for code examples constantly a sign of a bad developer?

    - by Newly Insecure
    I am a comp sci student with several years of experience in C and C++, and for the last few years I've been constantly working with Java/Objective C doing app dev and now I have switched to web dev and am mainly focused on ruby on rails and I came to the realization that (as with app dev, really) I reference other code wayyyy too much. I constantly google functionality for lots of things I imagine I should be able to do from scratch and it's really cracked my confidence a bit. Basic fundamentals are not an issue, I hate to use this as an example but I can run through javabat in both java/python at a sprint - obviously not an accomplishment and but what I mean to say is I have a strong base for the fundamentals I think? I know what I need to use typically but reference syntax constantly. Would love some advice and input on this, as it has been holding me back pretty solidly in terms of looking for work in this field even though I'm finishing my degree. My main reason for asking is not really about employment, but more that I don't want to be the only guy at a hackathon not hammering out nonstop code and sitting there with 20 google/github tabs open, and I have refrained from attending any due to a slight lack of confidence... Is a person a bad developer by constantly looking to code examples for moderate to complex tasks?

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  • Determine Better Coding Practice

    - by footprint.
    As a new programmer, it has always been hard to create applications, because I am still at the learning stage. I understand that to achieve a particular affect or function in an application, there will be numerous ways to achieve the same result. However, should I just purely create a function to it's working state, which means that as long as it works, just as the way I want it to, then it should be fine. Can any fellow programmers of a higher level kindly let me know the right way of doing things?

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  • How do you know when you are tired of programming in your life?

    - by medusa
    Have you ever felt that you have had enough of programming and you want to do something else in your life which hopefully doesn't include staying in front of the computer all day? Also, while thinking these you realize it's time to stop thinking and continue your code. I am going through these thoughts for some time now, do you ever feel like this and what do you do to get yourself concentrated and happy with your work?

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  • Layout of experienced programmer Resume? [closed]

    - by mob1lejunkie
    What layout of resume works best for experienced programmers? Currently my layout is: Contact Details Focus (goal) Technical Skills Professional Experience (Responsibilities + achievements at each job) Education Interests I feel my current layout uses up too much valuable space. Most of the online templates feel like junior Resumes with emphasis on education so I am not sure how I can improve it. I wonder how many hiring managers actually care about goal/objective? To me it looks useless. Also, is it necessary to have summary of technical skills/technologies? If so, would it not make more sense for it to be mentioned later in the Resume rather then at the top? Finally, do you have separate section for achievements? Many thanks.

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  • Diving into a computer science career [closed]

    - by Willis
    Well first I would like to say thank you for taking the time to read my question. I'll give you some background. I graduated two years ago from a local UC in my state with a degree in cognitive psychology and worked in a neuroscience lab. During this time I was exposed to some light Matlab programming and other programming tidbits, but before this I had some basic understanding of programming. My father worked IT for a company when I was younger so I picked up his books and took learned things along the way growing up. Naturally I'm an inquisitive person, constantly learning, love challenges, and have had exposure to some languages. Yet at this point I was fully pursue it as a career and always had this in the back of my head. Where do I start? I'm 25 and feel like I still have time to make a switch. I've immersed myself in the terminal/command prompt to start, but which language do I focus on? I've read the A+ book and planning to take on the exam, then the networking exam, but I want to deal with more programming, development, and troubleshooting. I understand to get involved in open source, but where? I took the next step and got a small IT assistant job, but doesn't really deal with programming, development, just troubling shooting and small network issues. Thank you!

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  • How do I make the correct career decision in regards to product manager/QA vs programmer?

    - by Adel
    I'm curious about how to approach the issue of whether I should focus on programming or on QA/testing/product management. I know that the latter seems like a broad category( if so, think of it as "general IT support" for now). At the moment I'm stronger in QA/prod. mgt ; however I'd like to switch more to programming, and I see I may have this opportunity. Wouldn't it be easier to switch to QA/prod. mgt in the future, if I go into programming now; rather than trying the reverse-order(i.e. if I decided later to go into coding.. say around mid-30s then it'd likely be harder). Just looking for any advice or tips about how to see more clearly. Part of me is scared I can't handle the programming side, but part of me says since there's demand and I'm interested that it's still worth a shot.

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  • Participate in open source project

    - by peraueb8921
    Currently, I am through a very creative phase as a developer and I think it's a good time to contribute to an open source project. Not as "permanent" developer to a project but in a "help wanted" manner in many projects. The only open source hosting services that I know of are SourceForge and CodePlex. Any suggestions that will help me on this direction? Like other sites that support this. Thanks in advance.

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  • Is there benefit to maintain a large project with bad code?

    - by upton
    I'm currently maintain a large project with more than 100000 LOC. The code use the MFC as its framework, in genral, it only has interface part which heavily use the mfc api and a business logic part which full of bad code, confusing logic. The company has some small features delivered to the customer each year(most features are adding code to exisiting project, finding some reference of some api or variable and it' s no different with fixing 3-4 bugs ), most of the tasks are to resove issue and optimize performance . Like other company with maintaining position, it value people who knows much logic about its product. There are people who can quickly finish the job on such project, is it worth to train myself like such a programmer? Is there benifits to work on such project for a long time?

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  • What should a programmer's yearly routine be to maximize their technical skills?

    - by sguptaet
    2 years ago I made a big career change into programming. I learned various technologies on my own without any prior experience. I really love it and feel lucky with all the resources around us to help us learn. Books, courses, open-source, etc. There are so many avenues. I'm wondering what a good routine would be to follow to maximize my software development skills. I don't believe just building software is the way, because that leaves no time for learning new concepts or technologies. I'm looking for an answer like this: Take a new concept sabbatical/workshop 2 weeks per year. Read 1 theoretical and 1 practical programming book per year. Learn 1 additional language every 2 years. Take a 1 week vacation every 6 months. Etc. I realize that the above might sound naive and unrealistic as there are so many factors. But I'd like to know the "recipe" that you think is best that will serve as a guide for people.

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  • Good Introductory Books on Writing Secure Software

    - by cosmic.osmo
    What are some good introductory books about writing secure software? Specifically, one that covers basic strategies and design patterns for writing a secure software and surveys common security vulnerabilities, how they're exploited, and how you can protect against them. Personally, I've picked up bits of security know-how here and there over my career, but now I'd like a more systematic overview.

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  • How to learn to deliver quality software designs when working on a tight deadline?

    - by chester89
    I read many books about how to design great software, but I kind of struggle to come up with a good design decisions when it comes to business apps, especially when the timeframe is tough. In the company I currently work for, the following situation happen all the time: my teamlead tells me that there's a task to do, I call some guy or a girl from business who tells me exactly what is it they want, and then I start coding. The task always fits in some existing application (we do only web apps or web services), usually it's purpose is to pull data from one datasource and put into the other one, with some business logic attached in the process. I start coding and then, after spending some time on a problem, my code didn't work as expected - either because of technical mistake or my lack of knowledge of the domain. The business is ringing me 2-3 times a day to hurry me up. I ask my team lead to help, he comes up, sees my code and goes like 'What's this?'. Then he throws away about half of my code, including all the design decisions I made, writes 2-3 methods that does the job (each of them usually 200-300 lines long or more, by the way), and task is complete, code works as it should have. The guy is smarter than me, obviously, and I'm aware of that. My goal is to be better software developer, that means write better code, not finish the job quicker with some crappy code. And the thing is, when I have enough time to tackle a problem, I can come up with a design that is good (in my opinion, of course), but I fall short to do so when I'm on a tight deadline. What should I do? I am fully aware that it's rather vague explanation, but please bear with me

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  • How do you take into account usability and user requirements for your application?

    - by voroninp
    Our team supports BackOffice application: a mix of WinForm and WPF windows. (about 80 including dialogs). Really a kind of a Swiss Army Knife. It is used by developers, tech writers, security developers, testers. The requirements for new features come quite often and sometimes we play Wizard of Oz to decide which GUI our users like the most. And it usually happens (I admit it can be just my subjective interpretation of the reality) that one tiny detail giving the flavor of good usability to our app requires a lot of time. This time is being spent on 'fighting' with GUI framework making it act like we need. And it very difficult to make estimations for this type of tasks (at least for me and most members of our team). Scrum poker is not a help either. Management often considers this usability perfectionism to be a waste of time. On the other hand an accumulated affect of features where each has some little usability flaw frustrates users. But the same users want frequent releases and instant bug fixes. Hence, no way to get the positive feedback: there is always somebody who is snuffy. I constantly feel myself as competing with ourselves: more features - more bugs/tasks/architecture. We are trying to outrun the cart we are pushing. New technologies arrive and some of them can potentially help to improve the design or decrease task implementation time but these technologies require learning, prototyping and so on. Well, that was a story. And now is the question: How do you balance between time pressure, product quality, users and management satisfaction? When and how do you decide to leave the problem with not a perfect but to some extent acceptable solution, how often do you make these decisions? How do you do with your own satisfaction? What are your priorities? P.S. Please keep in mind, we are a BackOffice team, we have neither dedicated technical writer nor GUI designer. The tester have joined us recently. We've much work to do and much freedom concerning 'how'. I like it because it fosters creativity but I don't want to become too nerdy perfectionist.

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  • Is there benifit to maintain a large project with bad code?

    - by upton
    I'm currently maintain a large project with more than 100000 LOC. The code use the MFC as its framework, in genral, it only has interface part which heavily use the mfc api and a business logic part which full of bad code, confusing logic. The company has some small features delivered to the customer each year(most features are adding code to exisiting project, finding some reference of some api or variable and it' s no different with fixing 3-4 bugs ), most of the tasks are to resove issue and optimize performance . Like other company with maintaining position, it value people who knows much logic about its product. There are people who can quickly finish the job on such project, is it worth to train myself like such a programmer? Is there benifits to work on such project for a long time?

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  • Is there a 'design pattern' type listing of common algorithms?

    - by KevinM1
    Is there a 'design pattern' styled listing of common/popular algorithms anywhere? Specifically, something that has a similar format along the lines of: Algorithm Name: e.g., Quick Sort, Bubble Sort, etc. Problem: A description of the stereotypical problem the algorithm is supposed to address Description: Description of the solution Implementation: Code examples of the solution Big O Rating: Self-explanatory Similar Algorithms: Algorithms that address the same problem in different ways, or similar problems I really like the GoF design pattern listing style, and I think it would help me learn various algorithms better/easier if I could find a resource that was similar in terms of organization.

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  • Should I expect my peers to read or practice on a regular basis? [closed]

    - by Joshua Smith
    I've been debating asking this question for some time. Based several of the comments I read in this question I decided I had to ask. This feels like I'm stating the obvious, but I believe that regular reading (of books, blogs, StackOverflow, whatever) and/or practice are required just to stay current (let alone excel) in whichever stack you use to pay the bills, not to mention playing with things outside your comfort zone to learn new ways of doing things. Yet, I virtually never see this from many of my peers. Even when I go out of my way to point out useful (and almost always free) learning material, I quite often get a sense of total apathy from those I'm speaking to. I'd even go so far as to say that if someone doesn't try to improve (or at least stay current), they'll atrophy as technology advances and actually become less useful to the company. I don't expect people to spend hours a day studying or practicing. I have two young kids and hours of practice simply aren't feasible. Still, I find some time; perhaps on the train, at lunch, in bed for a few minutes, whatever. I'm willing to believe this is arrogance or naivete on my part, but I'd like to hear what the community has to say. So here's my question: Should I expect (and encourage) the same from my peers, or just keep my mouth shut and do my own thing?

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  • How to write efficient code despite heavy deadlines

    - by gladysbixly
    Hi all, I am working in an environment wherein we have many projects with strict deadlines on deliverables. We even talk directly to the clients so getting the jobs done and fast is a must. My issue is that i'd always write code for the first solution that comes to my mind, which of course I thought as best at that moment. It always ends up ugly though and i'd later realize that there are better ways to do it but can't afford to change due to time restrictions. Are there any tips by which I could make my code efficient yet deliver on time?

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  • Is constantly looking for code examples a sign of a bad developer?

    - by Newly Insecure
    I am a CS student with several years of experience in C and C++, and for the last few years I've been constantly working with Java/Objective C doing app development and now I have switched to web development and am mainly focused on ruby on rails and I came to the realization that (as with app development , really) I reference other code way too much. I constantly Google functionality for lots of things I imagine I should be able to do from scratch and it's really cracked my confidence a bit. Basic fundamentals are not an issue, I hate to use this as an example but I can run through javabat in both java/python at a sprint - obviously not an accomplishment and but what I mean to say is I have a strong base for the fundamentals I think? I know what I need to use typically but reference syntax constantly. Would love some advice and input on this, as it has been holding me back pretty solidly in terms of looking for work in this field even though I'm finishing my degree. My main reason for asking is not really about employment, but more that I don't want to be the only guy at a hackathon not hammering out nonstop code and sitting there with 20 Google/github tabs open, and I have refrained from attending any due to a slight lack of confidence... Is a person a bad developer by constantly looking to code examples for moderate to complex tasks?

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  • What non-programming books should a programmer read to help develop programming/thinking skills?

    - by FeatureCreep
    There are a lot of questions about what programming books should be on the programmer's bookshelf. How about non-programming related books that can help you become a better programmer or developer? It would also be interesting to know why they would help. My first choice would be Sun Tzu's "Art of War" (however cliché), because it made it obvious that the success of any project depends on the strength of its weakest link (and warfare is a big project).

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  • WINAPI beginner guidance question

    - by gekod
    I'm learning to develop windows applications using WINAPI and plain C. Now I got a bit confused with all those handles and would like to ask if you guys could teach me some good practices to structure and handle controls and windows. Here's where I get confused: Using the IDs declared in the resources for each object, we can get their handles using GetDlgItem(). Now what if we don't know their parent, which is needed by this function. One example: We have the main window created at launch. Then we register two new window classes and create a window for each new class and we create a message function for each too. Now if inside one of the children windows I create a button and inside the other child window I create a text label. Now when we click the button inside of child window A the label in child window B shall be modified to whatever. The WM_COMMAND for the button is interpreted inside the message loop for child window A. Now what would be the best and more elegant way to access the text label inside the child window B? I am in the process of learning the WINAPI and just want to learn it right from the start instead of producing Hacked code that someday becomes unreadable and to later have to adapt to a new way of programing.

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  • Topics for covering in-depth programming knowledge

    - by black_belt
    I pursued my bachelors' degree in business administration, but my interest in Information Technology led me to acquire some knowledge of PHP programming and MySQL database. I find programming so interesting that I haven't applied for any job since my graduation. Currently I am staying home and just trying to acquire in-depth knowledge of PHP programming. So far I have developed couple of websites and web applications including Inventory+ Point of Sale Software and an Accounting system for small organizations. I aim to have knowledge that a Computer Science graduate should have, and for that I want to read books but I have no idea where to start from. Could you please suggest me some books and topics that I should study on? Thanks a lot :)

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  • How to morph from a programmer noob to a guru?

    - by didxga
    I have been a programmer for two years, and i am getting hard to level up my skill especially working at legacy code maintenance right now. I think working hard is not enough to elevate my skill, because there are ton of opensource around us, the preoject i have been involved are all mixture of opensources --- from front end to back end from presentation tier to business logic tier. My work is just gluing all these together or something fewer complex which is to collect data from UI to logic module then retrieve the data processed and put it to UI. Sometime there is a need to add some simple logic(like assembling the data to a form that fit business logic interface) while transport data. Could you please give me any suggestion what should i do on the side to improve my skill? Thanks!

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