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  • What data is available regarding cowboy coding?

    - by Christine
    I'm not a programmer; I'm a freelance writer and researcher. I have a client who is looking for stats on certain "threats" to the apps market in general (not any specific app store). One of them is cowboy coding: specifically, he wants to see numbers regarding how many apps have failed to function as intended/crashed/removed because of errors made by, in essence, sloppy coding. Note that I'm not here to debate the merits of cowboy coding, and whether or not it is sloppy. Is there any data about this type of development?

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  • Cowboy Agile?

    - by Robert May
    In a previous post, I outlined the rules of Scrum.  This post details one of those rules. I’ve often heard similar phrases around Scrum that clue me in to someone who doesn’t understand Scrum.  The phrases go something like this: “We don’t do Agile because the idea of letting people just do whatever they want is wrong.  We believe in a more structured approach.” (i.e. Work is Prison, and I’m the Warden!) “I love Agile.  Agile lets us do whatever we want!” (Cowboy Agile?) “We’re Agile, but we use a process that I’ve created.” (Cowboy Agile?) All of those phrases have one thing in common:  The assumption that Agile, and I mean Scrum, lets you do whatever you want.  This is simply not true. Executing Scrum properly requires more dedication, rigor, and diligence than happens in most traditional development methods. Scrum and Waterfall Compared Since Scrum and Waterfall are two of the most commonly used methodologies, a little bit of contrasting and comparing is in order. Waterfall Scrum A project manager defines all tasks and then manages the tasks that team members are working on. The team members define the tasks and estimates of the stories for the current iteration.  Any team member may work on any task in the iteration. Usually only a few milestones that need to be met, the milestones are measured in months, and these milestones are expected to be missed.  Little work is ever done to improve estimates and poor estimators can hide behind high estimates. Stories must be delivered every iteration, milestones are measured in hours, and the team is expected to figure out why their estimates were wrong, even when they were under.  Repeated misses can get the entire team fired. Partially completed work is normal. Partially completed work doesn’t count. Nobody knows the task you’re working on. Everyone knows what you’re working on, whether or not you’re making progress and how much longer you think its going to take, in hours. Little requirement to show working code.  Prototypes are ok. Working code must be shown each iteration.  No smoke and mirrors allowed.  Testing is done in lengthy cycles at the end of development.  Developers aren’t held accountable. Testing is part of the team.  If the testers don’t accept the story as complete, the team can’t count it.  Complete means that the story’s functionality works as designed.  The team can’t have any open defects on the story. Velocity is rarely truly measured and difficult to evaluate. Velocity is integral to the process and can be seen at a glance and everyone in the company knows what it is. A business analyst writes requirements.  Designers mock up screens.  Developers hide behind “I did it just like the spec doc told me to and made the screen exactly like the picture” Developers are expected to collaborate in real time.  If a design is bad or lacks needed details, the developers are required to get it right in the iteration, because all software must be functional.  Designers and Business Analysts are part of the team and must do their work in iterations slightly ahead of the developers. Upper Management is often surprised.  “You told me things were going well two months ago!” Management receives updates at the end of every iteration showing them exactly what the team did and how that compares to what' is remaining in the backlog.  Managers know every iteration what their money is buying. Status meetings are rare or don’t occur.  Email is a primary form of communication. Teams coordinate every single day with each other and use other high bandwidth communication channels to make sure they’re making progress.  Email is used only as a last resort.  Instead, team members stand up, walk to each other, and talk, face to face.  If that’s not possible, they pick up the phone. IF someone asks what happened, its at the end of a lengthy development cycle measured in months, and nobody really knows why it happened. Someone asks what happened every iteration.  The team talks about what happened, and then adapts to make sure that what happened either never happens again or happens every time.   That’s probably enough for now.  As you can see, a lot is required of Scrum teams! One of the key differences in Scrum is that the burden for many activities is shifted to a group of people who share responsibility, instead of a single person having responsibility.  This is a very good thing, since small groups usually come up with better and more insightful work than single individuals.  This shift also results in better velocity.  Team members can take vacations and the rest of the team simply picks up the slack.  With Waterfall, if a key team member takes a vacation, delays can ensue. Scrum requires much more out of every team member and as a result, Scrum teams outperform non-Scrum teams working 60 hour weeks. Recommended Reading Everyone considering Scrum should read Mike Cohn’s excellent book, User Stories Applied. Technorati Tags: Agile,Scrum,Waterfall

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  • code cowboy on the team

    - by MK01
    How do you deal with a team member who is senior to you and always jumps on other people's projects and completes them over night or over the weekend? She seems to work 80 hour weeks whether there is an emergency or not and it is somewhat difficult to predict which part of your todo list she is going to strike next. Sometimes days of your work are wasted because on Monday morning you find a checkin completing the project you've spent most of the previous week working on. To people asking of the quality: Usually it is quite good but: there is also a lot of refactoring of code involved, including code 'owned' by other team members, w/o regard for the test coverage, with the obvious results.

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  • I need help with some terminology

    - by Christine
    I'm not a programmer; I'm a freelance writer and researcher. I have a client who'd looking for stats on certain "threats" to the apps market. One of them is cowboy coding. (I know what that means; that's not my question.) Specifically, he wants to see numbers regarding how many apps have failed/crashed/removed because of errors made by, in essence, sloppy coding. (I'm not here to debate the merits of cowboy coding, and whether or not it is sloppy; work with me here.) I've used every possible search term/phrase I can think of, but I can't find any hard numbers, just anecdotal evidence. Have any of you seen any reports that have this kind of data?

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  • How to stop Lean programming becoming Cowboy Coding?

    - by Matt Howells
    My team has been progressively adopting more and more lightweight methodologies, moving from Scrum to Lean/Kanban where there is less and less formal process. At some point we will be back to Cowboy Coding; indeed I fear we may already be on the border line. Where can the line be drawn between a very lightweight Lean and Agile process and anarchy? How will we know when we have crossed the line? And how can we prevent ourselves from crossing the line? The question might also be phrased as, 'what processes cannot be safely eliminated in Lean's drive to eliminate waste'?

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  • Codeigniter Open Source Applications for Coding References

    - by Hafizul Amri
    I choose codeigniter to be my first framework to work with. Now I'm looking for open source applications built based on this framework to be my references for good coding practices and standards. From my previous experiences in application development, it was hard for me to maintain, upgrade, or modify existing applications due to my bad coding practices. Do you have any suggestion of application based on codeigniter framework for me to be referred? So that it can help me to write better coding by referring to their good and maybe best coding pratices. Thank you!

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  • Is there a resource that explains the benefits of layered programming?

    - by P.Brian.Mackey
    Some developers I know favor what I would call a procedural programming style. I recognize that procedural programming has its uses, albeit not in the business application world of .NET programming. So let's say we have a winform application with a buttonclick event. The buttonclick handles everything from the UI configuration to the database call and data manipulation. So you end up with a method that is 100's of lines of code long. Outside the fact that this code can't be considered test-able for various reasons, this style of programming is fragile to change. I can talk bout OO, Anti-patterns, etc. The problem is that any distinct topic I can dream up requires a great deal of explanation to understand the potential benefits. Outside of finding a new job (lots of businesses program this way), how can I teach these kinds of developers how to write better code? Obviously we can't sit around a round table and discuss pro's and con's all day due to time constraints and real work that has to be done. Although, training and intense training is the only thing I can think of to fix these problems. Not to say I write perfect code, I most certainly do not. I do believe there are certain best practices that should be followed as a rule E.G. OO in the context of .NET. The most common excuse I hear is "we can't write code fast enough if we do it like that".

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  • How can I convince cowboy programmers to use source control?

    - by P.Brian.Mackey
    UPDATE I work on a small team of devs, 4 guys. They have all used source control. Most of them can't stand source control and instead choose not to use it. I strongly believe source control is a necessary part of professional development. Several issues make it very difficult to convince them to use source control: The team is not used to using TFS. I've had 2 training sessions, but was only allotted 1 hour which is insufficient. Team members directly modify code on the server. This keeps code out of sync. Requiring comparison just to be sure you are working with the latest code. And complex merge problems arise Time estimates offered by developers exclude time required to fix any of these problems. So, if I say nono it will take 10x longer...I have to constantly explain these issues and risk myself because now management may perceive me as "slow". The physical files on the server differ in unknown ways over ~100 files. Merging requires knowledge of the project at hand and, therefore, developer cooperation which I am not able to obtain. Other projects are falling out of sync. Developers continue to have a distrust of source control and therefore compound the issue by not using source control. Developers argue that using source control is wasteful because merging is error prone and difficult. This is a difficult point to argue, because when source control is being so badly mis-used and source control continually bypassed, it is error prone indeed. Therefore, the evidence "speaks for itself" in their view. Developers argue that directly modifying server code, bypassing TFS saves time. This is also difficult to argue. Because the merge required to synchronize the code to start with is time consuming. Multiply this by the 10+ projects we manage. Permanent files are often stored in the same directory as the web project. So publishing (full publish) erases these files that are not in source control. This also drives distrust for source control. Because "publishing breaks the project". Fixing this (moving stored files out of the solution subfolders) takes a great deal of time and debugging as these locations are not set in web.config and often exist across multiple code points. So, the culture persists itself. Bad practice begets more bad practice. Bad solutions drive new hacks to "fix" much deeper, much more time consuming problems. Servers, hard drive space are extremely difficult to come by. Yet, user expectations are rising. What can be done in this situation?

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  • Working Solo On Small Projects: Cowboy Coding The Way To Go?

    - by snicker
    I am a big advocate of agile methods when working on teams and/or large projects. However, I find that for smaller projects, when working solo, I usually start the project writing unit tests, documenting extensively, refactoring. As time wears on, I stop because I feel like I'm wasting time. I find that cowboy coding with an agile spin (testing often, writing human readable code) often works extremely well for me on small, solo projects that I don't expect others to have to work with. Do other people share my sentiment? Or do you think that one should never stick to their guns (get it? cowboys)? So the real question: Are there any agile methodologies that are particularly tailored to a solo project? (other than my "agile cowboy" method above)

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  • Transisting from Chemical engineering to software industry what to do??

    - by console cowboy
    Hello all. Currently I am in my last semester of Engineering & has made my mind to switch to software field but given my knowledge of programming limited only to C. I am confused what to do next.Currently i have two choices. 1) Get good at C,Learn Python & write some good code/Apps & increase my employability chances. Or 2) Do some Java/.Net certifications to increase my employability chances. Any kind of advice/suggestion is highly welcomed. P.s:I am also good at Linux & have a above average knowledge of operating systems. P.p.s:An view from Indian Programmers would be beneficial.

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  • How large of a swap partition is needed to hibernate?

    - by Closure Cowboy
    I've read this question, but it doesn't definitively answer my question. If I want my computer to be able to hibernate, do I need to have a swap partition as large as my RAM, or will Ubuntu wisely be able to hibernate if the swap partition can fit the currently-in-use RAM? I'm about to install Ubuntu on a computer with a lot of RAM, and a relatively small hard drive, so I don't want to use more hard drive space than necessary. I wanted to avoid giving my actual specifications to keep this question more general, though I'll give them if necessary.

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  • Transitioning from Chemical engineering to software industry what to do??

    - by console cowboy
    Hello all. Currently I am in my last semester of Engineering & has made my mind to switch to software field but given my knowledge of programming limited only to C. I am confused what to do next.Currently i have two choices. Get good at C, learn Python & write some good code/Apps & increase my employability chances. Do some Java/.Net certifications to increase my employability chances? Any kind of advice/suggestion is highly welcomed. P.S:I am also good at Linux & have a above average knowledge of operating systems. P.p.s: Advice from Indian Programmers would be beneficial.

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  • How does one open multiple tabs in TextWrangler?

    - by Closure Cowboy
    No, I'm not bluffing. I really can't figure this out. The setup: I went to File -> Open, and then selected a directory rather than a file. As expected, a directory tree opened on the left side of my document. Hooray! I can easily view the files' structure in my Rails project. So, I make a few changes in a file, and then I click on a different file in the directory tree. My problem: TextWrangler then asks me whether I want to save my changes. Huh? I say "No", and the new document doesn't open at all. Great. I try hitting Command+N (new document). A new window opens. Ughhhh. How the heck do I open documents in a new tab? Note: I have set the "New & opened documents" behavior to "Open in the front window". This does not change the behavior described (i.e. when a directory is opened rather than a single file).

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  • How do you install plugins for MacVim?

    - by Closure Cowboy
    Specifically, I'm trying to install NERDtree. I downloaded the 4.10 package from github, unzipped it into ~/.vim/, and restarted MacVim (version 7.3). Typing :nerdtree results in the following error: E492: Not an editor command: nerdtree In terminal, typing: cd ~/.vim ls -R Results in: Rakefile doc nerdtree_plugin plugin ./doc: NERD_tree.txt ./nerdtree_plugin: exec_menuitem.vim fs_menu.vim ./plugin: NERD_tree.vim What am I missing?

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  • Does frequently formatting and reinstalling an operating system damage a hard drive?

    - by Closure Cowboy
    I tend to format and reinstall my operating system fairly frequently (about once a month). I apologize for my lack of technical terms, but I do not perform a "full format" (the type of formatting that zeros-out the existing data). Regardless, I know that most modern operating systems consume several GBs of data. Is doing this particular damaging to my hard drives? Would it matter whether I'm using a solid state drive (I'm not)?

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  • Set property on usercontrol that can be used in custom panel in control... Silverlight

    - by Dimestore Cowboy
    I have a simple usercontrol that uses a simple custom panel where I just overrode the Orientation and Measure functions. What I want to do is to have a property in the usercontol to control the orientation So I basicaly have UserControl -- Listbox -- MyPanel And I want a property for the usercontrol that can be set in xaml (of type System.Windows.Controls.Orientation ) that I can bind to from my custom panel (or a different approach if binding isnt the right way to do it) It would be a bonus if that property could show up in the properties window and you could select vertical or horizontal. And a super bonus if I could change the property at design time and have the listbox/

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  • why refresh evrytime?

    - by cowboy
    I have form below which contains a text field and a button. when i start typing it shows hints from my database and on clicking button or hiting enter key it displys search results. ajax technology is used for both hints and search results and it is working well but THE PROBLEM IS THAT IT WORKS ONLY THE FIRST TIME PAGE LOADS OR ONLY AFTER REFRESHING THE PAGE. IF I WANT ANOTHER SEARCH IT DOESNT RESPOND, JUST SHOWS THE PREVIOS SEARCH RESULT UNLESS THE PAGE IS REFRESHED. <input type="text" id="txt" onkeyup="showhint(this.value)"/> <input type="button" value="search" onclick="searchresult()"/> what kind of problem is this?? any solution?? plz plz plz

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  • Which is G++ 4.4.1 default allocator?

    - by Cowboy
    I was wondering which is the default memory allocator in G++ 4.4.1, on Ubuntu 9.1. I am interested in comparing different C++ allocators in a multithreaded environment. And where can I get more information about the default memory allocator? Regards

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  • Hoard allocator not "working"?

    - by Cowboy
    I'm trying to Hoard allocator to work, but it seems it doesn't. I have a benchmark application that does a lot of dynamic memory management. The execution time for Hoard and glibc memory manager is the same. It makes me wonder if I'm doing the right thing. What I do is... export LD_PRELOAD="/path/libhoard.so" g++ main.cpp -O3 -o bm -lpthread -lrt Shouldn't I have to link to Hoard allocator? Does it matter what path (in LD_PRELOAD) is, or can I have whatever path? I'm running Ubuntu 8.04, and g++ 4.2.4 Cheers

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  • Where would my different development rhythm be suitable for the work?

    - by DarenW
    Over the years I have worked on many projects, with some successful and a great benefit to the company, and some total failures with me getting fired or otherwise leaving. What is the difference? Naturally I prefer the former and wish to avoid the latter, so I'm pondering this issue. The key seems to be that my personal approach differs from the norm. I write code first, letting it be all spaghetti and chaos, using whatever tools "fit my hand" that I'm fluent in. I try to organize it, then give up and start over with a better design. I go through cycles, from thinking-design to coding-testing. This may seem to be the same as any other development process, Agile or whatever, cycling between design and coding, but there does seem to be a subtle difference: The methods (ideally) followed by most teams goes design, code; design, code; ... while I'm going code, design; code, design; (if that makes any sense.) Music analogy: some types of music have a strong downbeat while others have prominent syncopation. In practice, I just can't think in terms of UML, specifications and so on, but grok things only by attempting to code and debug and refactor ad-hoc. I need the grounding provided by coding in order to think constructively, then to offer any opinions, advice or solutions to the team and get real work done. In positions where I can initially hack up cowboy code without constraints of tool or language choices, I easily gain a "feel" for the data, requirements etc and eventually do good work. In formalized positions where paperwork and pure "design" comes first and only later any coding (even for small proof-of-concept projects), I am lost at sea and drown. Therefore, I'd like to know how to either 1) change my rhythm to match the more formalized methodology-oriented team ways of doing things, or 2) find positions at organizations where my sense of development rhythm is perfect for the work. It's probably unrealistic for a person to change their fundamental approach to things. So option 2) is preferred. So where I can I find such positions? How common is my approach and where is it seen as viable but different, and not dismissed as undisciplined or cowboy coder ways?

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  • Appropriate Footwear for An Interview

    - by EoRaptor013
    There's a raging debate going on at my house about appropriate footwear for an IT interview. I have an interview, on Thursday, for a SQL/C# developer with the Fraud dept. at a large accounting firm. I was planning on wearing what I have pretty much always worn for an interview: a nice suit, white shirt, subdued tie, and a pair of dress cowboy boots. My spouse and daughter both know that my dress code for nearly every professional job I've ever gotten, is pretty much the same -- including the boots -- with what I just described. Now, however, because I've been out of work for an unfortunately long time (my last contract ended 03/09 -- pretty much coincidental with the bottom falling out of the economy). My wife insists that style standards are fundamentally different on the left side of the Mississippi vs. the right side of the river. My view is that I've always worn "cowboy" boots; since I was old enough to fit into a real pair. I moved East, as an adult, over 30 years ago, but my dress patterns haven't changed. And in all that time, my dress patterns have never changed. Now I both really want, and really need, this job. But, is that sufficient reason to change a habit 40 years in the making? I would really appreciate the thoughts ya'all (little West of Ms. colloquialism, there) might have on this matter. Thanks. P.S. If this sort of question is inappropriate for this form, I apologize.

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  • Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group – SharePoint 2010 Mini-Launch Event - Review

    - by dmccollough
    The Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group set a record for attendance last night at our SharePoint 2010 Mini-Launch Event. Approximately 40+ people showed up to listen to SharePoint MVP Eric Shupps, The SharePoint Cowboy to discuss all of the new features for both administrators and developers. All of the Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group Officers worked very hard to ensure that this event happened. We hosted our event at our local Dave & Busters and it was a great location with good food and great service. All of the officers of the Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group would like to extend a big Thank You to all of our sponsor that helped us in making our SharePoint 2010 Mini-Launch Event a reality.

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  • Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group – SharePoint 2010 Mini-Launch Event

    - by dmccollough
    Tulsa SharePoint Interest Group Presents a SharePoint 2010 Mini-Launch Event featuring Special guest speaker Eric Shupps, The SharePoint Cowboy A GREAT big Thank You to our sponsors for making this happen. Please take a minute and visit their websites.   Note: We have limited seating available for this event so please sign up now by clicking here. When: Thursday May 13th 2010 Where: Dave & Busters 6812 S. 105th East Ave Tulsa, Oklahoma 74133 Click here for directions Time: 6:00 PM Prizes, Prizes, Prizes We will be giving away some great prizes at this event, including: Studio for SharePoint (Enterprise license) valued at $6,500.00 Telerik Premium Collection valued at $1,299.00 Infragistics NetAdvantage for .NET Platform valued at $1,195.00 64 Bit Windows 7 Ultimate DevExpress CodeRush and Refactor! Pro valued at $250.00 JetBrains ReSharper valued at $199.00 Microsoft Arc Mouse Xbox 360 Game – Halo 3 ODST Xbox 360 Game – Forza Motorsport 3 Note: We have limited seating available for this event so please sign up now by clicking here.  

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  • What Agile Model do you use at Work?

    - by Kyle Rozendo
    I am looking to start pushing for more Agile processes to be brought into play in the work place and do my best to outlaw cowboy coding as much as possible. I understand many of the different models and am just looking to see which model has the higher uptake (or which parts of the model as well), and in what industry it is being used. Extreme Programming (XP) Adaptive Software Development (ASD) Scrum Dynamic Systems Development Model (DSDM) Crystal Feature Driven Development (FDD) Lean Software Development (LSD) Agile Modelling (AM) Agile Unified Process (AUP) Kanban If you care to add to your answer with comments about what you don't like, do like or have tried and it hadn't worked, that would also be appreciated.

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  • Advice on SCRUM for the solitary developer [closed]

    - by ProfK
    Possible Duplicate: Agile for the Solo Developer I am looking for advice on the SCRUM process for a solitary developer. Most SCRUM resources I see focus on its use in a team environment, hence my question here. I'd like some guidance on structuring and managing my projects for SCRUM, with me as a solitary developer and business owner, but still occasionally including my clients for input and feedback. Areas I'm not clear on include resolving my backlog into 'sprintable' project areas and stories, defining user stories properly with a view to being digested by developer level users, defining feasible sprints for a single developer etc. Essentially I'm looking for advice on moving from using scrum in a team/office environment, with colleagues and project manager, and using chaos/cowboy-coding on my own, to assuming the role of PM myself and adopting scrum for work on my own. Any advice is welcome.

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