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• HP Makes Its Mobile Move, Saves Palm From Collapse; Will Developers Stick?

  Will HP's purchase of Palm be enough to keep developers creating apps for the platform?

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• Which version of Ubuntu is recommended for app developers?

  - by Wes

  I've searched around Ask Ubuntu and the App Developer site, but I can't seem to find the answers to my questions. I'm wanting to get back into programming, and I'd eventually like get into app development for Ubuntu, but I'm not sure where to get started. Which version of Ubuntu is currently recommended for app development, especially for those wanting to publish their apps to the Software Centre? Should app developers use the current LTS release, or, can any of the new releases be used? Should developers use the 32-bit or 64-bit edition of Ubuntu, or does this not matter? What effect would the above choices have on the eventual publication of an app? I'm truly sorry if this has been covered elsewhere. Cheers Wes

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• Project Management Tool for developers and sysadmins: shared or separate?

  - by David

  Should a team of system administrators who are on a software development project share a project management tool with the developers or use their own separate one? We use Trac and I see the benefit in sharing since inter-team tasks can be maintained by a single system where there may be cross-over or misfiled bugs (e.g. an apparent bug which turns out to be a server configuration issue or a development cycle which needs a server to be configured before it can start) However sharing could be difficult since many system administration tasks don't coincide with a single development milestone if at all. So should a system administration team use a separate PM Tool or share the same one with the developers? If they should share, then how?

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• Last chance to see ... Virtualisation for Developers at NxtGenUG Cambridge, Tuesday 14th December

  - by Liam Westley

  As a farewell to 2010 I'm also saying farewell to presenting my Virtualisation for Developers and Hyper-V for Developers presentations with a final outing at NxtGenUG in Cambridge (my first visit to a user group in The Fens). I may have some homemade nibbles and party stuff to liven up the evening, and a certain Rachel Hawley has suggested a santa hat might be appropriate too. It's going to be a fun night. Sign up details are available here,   http://www.nxtgenug.net/ViewEvent.aspx?EventID=353 And for those of you who can't make this last outing, I am planning on converting both presentations into a series of blog posts so the content will be available to a wider audience.  If the posts don't seem to be appearing fast enough drop me an e-mail to remind me to get on with it !

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• How do I interview Front-end focused web developers?

  - by Civilian

  For the first time I'm in the position where I'm helping interview potential front-end developers. (The other interviewer is more business & PM-focused, although he is a former developer.) I probe for knowledge and background in css, js, and other related technologies, but those questions are really just testing for lingo. I feel that it'd be unfair to ask very specific questions about css when we're not infront of a computer, because my style of programming css is a lot of guesswork. I've also been given websites that these web developers have written-- is that enough to go on for interviewing front-ends? We're also looking for general aptitude, rather than a databank of knowledge.

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• How do I check that my tests were not removed by other developers?

  - by parxier

  I've just came across an interesting collaborative coding issue at work. I've written some unit/functional/integration tests and implemented new functionality into application that's got ~20 developers working on it. All tests passed and I checked in the code. Next day I updated my project and noticed (by chance) that some of my test methods were deleted by other developers (merging problems on their end). New application code was not touched. How can I detect such problem automatically? I mean, I write tests to automatically check that my code still works (or was not deleted), how do I do the same for tests? We're using Java, JUnit, Selenium, SVN and Hudson CI if it matters.

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• If you were the manager of a team of 25 developers, how would you motivate them?

  - by Pierre 303

  Imagine yourself hired by a new startup backed with few millions coming from venture capitalists. Your mission: organize the development of the next killer app. 25 developers is too much to take care of each individually, so what decision(s) you would make to motivate them? I will appreciate any answers from stock options to free cookies ;) Of course the trick here (unless you are really a manager of a such startup), is put yourself in the shoes of one of those programmers. EDIT: it's an imaginary context. The purpose of this story is to stimulate your wishes. I want to capture what motivates developers.

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• Employer admits that its developers are underpaid and undervalued. Time to part ways?

  - by Psionic

  My employer recently posted an opening for a C# Developer with 3-5 years of experience. The requirements and expectations for the position were fair, up until the criteria for salary determination. It was stated clearly that compensation would depend ONLY on experience with C#, and that years of programming experience with other languages & frameworks would be considered irrelevant and not factored in. I brought up my concern with HR that good candidates would see this as a red flag and steer away. I attempted to explain that software development is about much more than specific languages, and that paying someone for their experience in a single language is a very shortsighted approach to hiring good developers (I'm telling this to the HR dept of a software company). The response: "We are tired of wasting time interviewing developers who expect 'big salaries' because they have lots of additional programming experience in languages other than what we require." The #1 issue here is that 'big salaries' = Market Rate. After some serious discussion, they essentially admitted that nobody at the company is paid near market rate for their skills, and there's nothing that can be done about it. The C-suite has the mentality that employees should only be paid for skills proven over years under their watch. Entry-level developers are picked up for less than $38K and may reach 50K after 3 years, which I'm assuming is around what they plan on offering candidates for the C# position. Another interesting discovery (not as relevant) - people 'promoted' to higher responsibilities do not get raises. The 'promotion' is considered an adjustment of the individuals' roles to better suit their 'strengths', which is what they're already being paid for. After hearing these hard truths straight from HR, I would assume that most people who are looking out for themselves would quickly begin searching for a new employer that has a better idea of what they're doing in the industry (this company fails in many other ways, but I don't want to write a book). Here is my dilemma however: This is the first official software development position I've held, for barely 1 year now. My previous position of 3 years was with a very small company where I performed many duties, among them software development (not in my official job description, but I tried very hard to make it so). I've identified local openings that I'm currently qualified for, most paying at least 50% more than I'm getting now. Question is, is it too soon for a jump? I am getting valuable experience in my current position, with no shortage of exciting projects. The work environment is very comfortable, and I'm told by many that I'm in the spotlight of the C-level guys for the stuff that I've been able to accomplish during my short time (for what that's worth). However, there is a clear opportunity cost to staying, knowing now with certainty that I will have to wait 3-5 years only to be capped at what I could potentially be earning elsewhere this year. I am also aware that 'job hopper' is a dangerous label to have, regardless of the reasons.

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• Can Agile/Scrum be used by 1 or 2 developers?

  - by Dillie-O

  Everything I've been reading and researching up to this point describes how Agile/Scrum works great with teams of about 4 to 6 members, maybe even more. In my current shop, we have about 8 developers or so, but given the nature of the volume of projects and the number of departments we support, we never have more than 1 or 2 folks assigned to a given project. Can I still use Agile/Scrum with a team of 1 or 2 developers? I'm working on making the pitch to my manager to start working with this methodology, but I need to be able to explain how to scale things back for a small developer crew, or convince them to make sure we get more members on a given project.

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• How do developers find the time to stay on top of latest technologies?

  - by u2sonderzug

  I was a freelance web developer until circa 2004 when I started going down the management route but have decided to try to get back into development again (specifically JavaScript and HTML5 web/mobile web apps) and I really get the impression to be truly good at these and similar fast moving technologies a constant amount of time is required to be set aside to invest in getting better at existing skills in addition to learning new skills. I understand right now since I am getting back into things there is a pretty steep learning curve, but seeing how good many guys are out there - the only way I see of getting up there is putting in a serious amount of time. For those working as fulltime developers, what I am trying to understand is this - on most days, how much time in the office is spent actually grinding out code compared to learning/research. I could easily spend 2-4 hours daily getting on top of the best ways to go about doing things. Do most good developers who are employed full time invest significant hours outside of work sharpening their skills? Or maybe I'm looking at all of this completely wrong?

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• Metro-style / iPhone apps development too demanding for newbie developers? [closed]

  - by linquize

  Both Metro-style and iPhone app require approval and publishing to app store. And they focus most on user interface and the quality of the software. Developers must deal with technical aspects, such as async programming (no UI blocking), no console program (must design a UI that cope with "Standard"), no CPU hungry (pause app if deactivated), need to study the permission matrix (not full access right), and more ... A newbie is not familiar with threading and synchronization. Do you thick they are too demanding for newbie developers? Can you give more examples how demanding it is?

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• Should I pay my developers for bugs fixes for a project or work that's still in progress?

  - by Wanda Pebbs

  We are working with a group of developers on a project. The project is still in progress (not completed) and these developers charge us for time spent on fixing bugs on codes that were not written valid in the first place. I understand that we should pay for changes/new requests if any, but not bugs fixes for a work in progress. We also understand that once the assignment is being deployed to the live site, we may be liable for bugs fixes that may arise after a support period is being exhausted. The question now is, is it appropriate for such charges to be levied upon us while the project is still in progress?

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• What do Embedded Software Developers do on a day to day basis?

  - by afree100

  Edit: I am not asking how to program embedded systems. I am asking how it is done in a practical business setting. I have searched for hours for information on what software developers actually do. More specifically, what coding challenges would one experience daily (e.g. code examples (although obviously not too large), specifics)? I am interested in Linux based embedded systems mainly, but any software development would be helpful (in the C/C++/Assembly areas). Also, regarding this, a distinction between junior, intermediate and senior developers would be helpful. Also, what is the best place to prepare for such things before getting a job for the first time?

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• Poll: What kind of computer should a corporate provide to their developers.

    I have been collecting a poll to almost any developer I find on my way as well as business owners. I have been looking to see what a small development shop, medium size company and a big corporate considers when providing development computers to their software developers. This has being very intriguing to me. In my career I found different software developers, the ones that work always with one product and one framework, as well as the one that keeps a few frameworks and projects. Of course...Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

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• How can we make agile enjoyable for developers that like to personally, independently own large chunks from start to finish

  - by Kris

  We’re roughly midway through our transition from waterfall to agile using scrum; we’ve changed from large teams in technology/discipline silos to smaller cross-functional teams. As expected, the change to agile doesn’t suit everyone. There are a handful of developers that are having a difficult time adjusting to agile. I really want to keep them engaged and challenged, and ultimately enjoying coming to work each day. These are smart, happy, motivated people that I respect on both a personal and a professional level. The basic issue is this: Some developers are primarily motivated by the joy of taking a piece of difficult work, thinking through a design, thinking through potential issues, then solving the problem piece by piece, with only minimal interaction with others, over an extended period of time. They generally complete work to a high level of quality and in a timely way; their work is maintainable and fits with the overall architecture. Transitioning to a cross-functional team that values interaction and shared responsibility for work, and delivery of working functionality within shorter intervals, the teams evolve such that the entire team knocks that difficult problem over. Many people find this to be a positive change; someone that loves to take a problem and own it independently from start to finish loses the opportunity for work like that. This is not an issue with people being open to change. Certainly we’ve seen a few people that don’t like change, but in the cases I’m concerned about, the individuals are good performers, genuinely open to change, they make an effort, they see how the rest of the team is changing and they want to fit in. It’s not a case of someone being difficult or obstructionist, or wanting to hoard the juiciest work. They just don’t find joy in work like they used to. I’m sure we can’t be the only place that hasn’t bumped up on this. How have others approached this? If you’re a developer that is motivated by personally owning a big chunk of work from end to end, and you’ve adjusted to a different way of working, what did it for you?

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• WebLogic Application Server: free for developers! by Bruno Borges

  - by JuergenKress

  Great news! Oracle WebLogic Server is now free for developers! What does this mean for you? That you as a developer are permitted to: "[...] deploy the programs only on your single developer desktop computer (of any type, including physical, virtual or remote virtual), to be used and accessed by only (1) named developer." But the most interesting part of the license change is this one: "You may continue to develop, test, prototype and demonstrate your application with the programs under this license after you have deployed the application for any internal data processing, commercial or production purposes" (Read the full license agreement here). If you want to take advantage of this licensing change and start developing Java EE applications with the #1 Application Server in the world, read now the previous post, How To Install WebLogic Zip on Linux! WebLogic Partner Community For regular information become a member in the WebLogic Partner Community please visit: http://www.oracle.com/partners/goto/wls-emea ( OPN account required). If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center. BlogTwitterLinkedInMixForumWiki Technorati Tags: WebLogic free,WebLogic for developers,WebLogic license,WebLogic Community,Oracle,OPN,Jürgen Kress

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• How can we make agile enjoyable for developers that like to personally, independently own large chunks from start to finish

  - by Kris

  We’re roughly midway through our transition from waterfall to agile using scrum; we’ve changed from large teams in technology/discipline silos to smaller cross-functional teams. As expected, the change to agile doesn’t suit everyone. There are a handful of developers that are having a difficult time adjusting to agile. I really want to keep them engaged and challenged, and ultimately enjoying coming to work each day. These are smart, happy, motivated people that I respect on both a personal and a professional level. The basic issue is this: Some developers are primarily motivated by the joy of taking a piece of difficult work, thinking through a design, thinking through potential issues, then solving the problem piece by piece, with only minimal interaction with others, over an extended period of time. They generally complete work to a high level of quality and in a timely way; their work is maintainable and fits with the overall architecture. Transitioning to a cross-functional team that values interaction and shared responsibility for work, and delivery of working functionality within shorter intervals, the teams evolve such that the entire team knocks that difficult problem over. Many people find this to be a positive change; someone that loves to take a problem and own it independently from start to finish loses the opportunity for work like that. This is not an issue with people being open to change. Certainly we’ve seen a few people that don’t like change, but in the cases I’m concerned about, the individuals are good performers, genuinely open to change, they make an effort, they see how the rest of the team is changing and they want to fit in. It’s not a case of someone being difficult or obstructionist, or wanting to hoard the juiciest work. They just don’t find joy in work like they used to. I’m sure we can’t be the only place that hasn’t bumped up on this. How have others approached this? If you’re a developer that is motivated by personally owning a big chunk of work from end to end, and you’ve adjusted to a different way of working, what did it for you?

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• Why don't C++ Game Developers use the boost library?

  - by James

  So if you spend any time viewing / answering questions over on Stack Overflow under the C++ tag, you will quickly notice that just about everybody uses the boost library; some would even say that if you aren't using it, you're not writing "real' C++ (I disagree, but that's not the point). But then there is the game industry, which is well known for using C++ and not using boost. I can't help but wonder why that is. I don't care to use boost because I write games (now) as a hobby, and part of that hobby is implementing what I need when I am able to and using off-the-shelf libraries when I can't. But that is just me. Why don't game developers, in general, use the boost library? Is it performance or memory concerns? Style? Something Else? I was about to ask this on stack overflow, but I figured the question is better asked here. EDIT : I realize I can't speak for all game programmers and I haven't seen all game projects, so I can't say game developers never use boost; this is simply my experience. Allow me to edit my question to also ask, if you do use boost, why did you choose to use it?

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• How do you structure your shared code so that it is "re-findable" for new developers?

  - by awmckinley

  I started working at my current job about 8 months ago, and its been one of the best experiences I've had as a young programmer. It's a small company, and both my co-developers are brilliant guys. One of the practices that they both have been encouraging is lots of code-reuse. Our code base is mainly C#, and we're using a centralized revision control system. The way the repository is currently structured, there is a single folder in which all shared class libraries are placed (along with unit tests for each library), and our revision control system allows for sharing or linking those libraries out to other projects. What I'm trying to understand at this point is how the current structure of the folder can be made more conducive for finding those libraries again. I've talked to the other developers about this, and they agree that it's gotten a little messy. I find that I am sometimes "reinventing the wheel" because I didn't realize that there was an existing piece of code that solved a particular problem. The issue is complicated further by the fact that we're sharing some code between ASP.NET MVC2, WinForms, and Windows CE projects, and sharing code between applications built against multiple versions of .NET. How do other people approach this? Is the answer in naming the libraries in a certain way or is it preferable to invest in some code-search software? Is the answer in doc comments? Should we be sharing libraries at all or should we simply branch the class libraries for re-use? Thanks for any and all help!

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• Should the number of developers be considered when estimating a task?

  - by Ludwig Magnusson

  I am pretty inexperienced with working in agile projects but I have tried it a few times and I always run into this problem when estimating a task. Do we bring into the estimate the number of developers that will work on the task? Let me explain: Task A is estimated to one time unit and developer 1 will work on it. Task B is also estimated to one time unit and developer 2 and 3 will work on it together. I.e. if developer 1 begins to work on task A at the same time developer 2 and 3 begins to work on task B they will all finish at the same time according to the estimate. Should the estimate for task B be twice of that for task A or the same? The problem as I see it is that when a task is received and estimated, it is not always possible to know how many people will work on it. And if you assumed that two developers would work on the task for one time unit but it turns out that only one developer will actually do it, this will not automatically mean that that developer will work on it for two time units. Is there any standard practice for this?

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• Should I be looking for developers with specific skill sets or generalists that need to learn?

  - by Lostsoul

  Thanks to the great help of this site and SO, I've been able to make a prototype of a software I want to sell but unfortunately although the prototype works I think my code quality is very low. I didn't use much OOP or design patterns so although my code is understandable to me, I think a normal developer would faint if they had to read it. So I wanted to hire a developer to make it a bit more better quality and improve some of my implementations of API's that I may have not done correctly. I'm having problems hiring a developer though. I have met 2 developers and had them read my software specs.The problem is, they lacked my business's domain knowledge(which is completely understandable and no biggie) but they also lacked knowledge of the underlying tech systems I used such as Hadoop, Hbase, Cuda, etc..I spent alot of time explaining map/reduce, bigtables and other technologies I used. I thought it was common knowledge because of my interactions with people on this site but the people I met with mentioned they never had to deal with these things so they didn't know it. My question is, for software projects that are hiring contractor developers is it a danger if the developer does not have experience with the underlying technologies? or can a general developer who is accomplished in another area realistically pick up new technologies? I did a very very quick back of envelope calculation and I think the upfront costs would be similar if I hire a student or developer with no experience in my technologies who will work many hours versus hiring a highly experienced developer who charges double but finishes in half the time but what other risks should I be considering or worried about? Also, should if I do hire a generalist, should I be paying for the time it takes them to learn hadoop or cuda if they are contractors(seems to make business sense but not sure how fair it is to them if they do not use the skill again). I'm a bit confused so any suggestions would be great.

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• Should developers do their own software releases (if there is a prod support team in place)?

  - by leora

  I know there are going to always be differences depending on the particular size, staff etc, but i wanted to get feedback in general around: In an environment where you have a production support team doing first line support and release management, is it better to simply have developers manage their own releases instead? In this case, its internal software at an insurance company but the question should be valid at any company, size, etc I think. Currently, we have our production team do releases but there is an argument that its inefficient and that if you allowed developers the ability to do it, they will focus more on making it simple and efficient and avoid basically passing on scripts, etc to run to another team. The counter argument is that if you don't have a check and balance, you could get a software team (or an individual) that doesn't a very hacky job about getting their software out there (making on the fly changes, not documenting the process, etc) and that by forcing the prod support team to do the actual release, it enforces consistency and proper checks and balances. I know this is not a black or white issue but I wanted to see what folks thought on this so the discipline and consistency is there but without the feeling that an inefficient process is in place.

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• How many developers before continuous integration becomes effective for us?

  - by Carnotaurus

  There is an overhead associated with continuous integration, e.g., set up, re-training, awareness activities, stoppage to fix "bugs" that turn out to be data issues, enforced separation of concerns programming styles, etc. At what point does continuous integration pay for itself? EDIT: These were my findings The set-up was CruiseControl.Net with Nant, reading from VSS or TFS. Here are a few reasons for failure, which have nothing to do with the setup: Cost of investigation: The time spent investigating whether a red light is due a genuine logical inconsistency in the code, data quality, or another source such as an infrastructure problem (e.g., a network issue, a timeout reading from source control, third party server is down, etc., etc.) Political costs over infrastructure: I considered performing an "infrastructure" check for each method in the test run. I had no solution to the timeout except to replace the build server. Red tape got in the way and there was no server replacement. Cost of fixing unit tests: A red light due to a data quality issue could be an indicator of a badly written unit test. So, data dependent unit tests were re-written to reduce the likelihood of a red light due to bad data. In many cases, necessary data was inserted into the test environment to be able to accurately run its unit tests. It makes sense to say that by making the data more robust then the test becomes more robust if it is dependent on this data. Of course, this worked well! Cost of coverage, i.e., writing unit tests for already existing code: There was the problem of unit test coverage. There were thousands of methods that had no unit tests. So, a sizeable amount of man days would be needed to create those. As this would be too difficult to provide a business case, it was decided that unit tests would be used for any new public method going forward. Those that did not have a unit test were termed 'potentially infra red'. An intestesting point here is that static methods were a moot point in how it would be possible to uniquely determine how a specific static method had failed. Cost of bespoke releases: Nant scripts only go so far. They are not that useful for, say, CMS dependent builds for EPiServer, CMS, or any UI oriented database deployment. These are the types of issues that occured on the build server for hourly test runs and overnight QA builds. I entertain that these to be unnecessary as a build master can perform these tasks manually at the time of release, esp., with a one man band and a small build. So, single step builds have not justified use of CI in my experience. What about the more complex, multistep builds? These can be a pain to build, especially without a Nant script. So, even having created one, these were no more successful. The costs of fixing the red light issues outweighed the benefits. Eventually, developers lost interest and questioned the validity of the red light. Having given it a fair try, I believe that CI is expensive and there is a lot of working around the edges instead of just getting the job done. It's more cost effective to employ experienced developers who do not make a mess of large projects than introduce and maintain an alarm system. This is the case even if those developers leave. It doesn't matter if a good developer leaves because processes that he follows would ensure that he writes requirement specs, design specs, sticks to the coding guidelines, and comments his code so that it is readable. All this is reviewed. If this is not happening then his team leader is not doing his job, which should be picked up by his manager and so on. For CI to work, it is not enough to just write unit tests, attempt to maintain full coverage, and ensure a working infrastructure for sizable systems. The bottom line: One might question whether fixing as many bugs before release is even desirable from a business prespective. CI involves a lot of work to capture a handful of bugs that the customer could identify in UAT or the company could get paid for fixing as part of a client service agreement when the warranty period expires anyway.

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• Stop Spinning Your Wheels&hellip; Sage Advice for Aspiring Developers

  - by Mark Rackley

  So… lately I’ve been tasked with helping bring some non-developers over the hump and become full-fledged, all around, SharePoint developers. Well, only time will tell if I’m successful or a complete failure. Good thing about failures though, you know what NOT to do next time! Anyway, I’ve been writing some sort of code since I was about 10 years old; so I sometimes take for granted the effort some people have to go through to learn a new technology. I guess if I had to say I was an “expert” in one thing it would be learning (and getting “stuff” done) in new technologies. Maybe that’s why I’ve embraced SharePoint and the SharePoint community. SharePoint is the first technology I haven’t been able to master or get everything done without help from other people. I KNOW I’ll never know it all and I learn something new every day.  It keeps it interesting, it keeps me motivated, and keeps me involved. So, what some people may consider a downside of SharePoint, I definitely consider a plus. Crap.. I’m rambling. Where was I? Oh yeah… me trying to be helpful. Like I said, I am able to quickly and effectively pick up new languages, technology, etc. and put it to good use. Am I just brilliant? Well, my mom thinks so.. but maybe not. Maybe I’ve just been doing it for a long time…. 25 years in some form or fashion… wow I’m old… Anyway, what I lack in depth I make up for in breadth and being the “go-to” guy wherever I work when someone needs to “get stuff done”.  Let’s see if I can take some of that experience and put it to practical use to help new people get up to speed faster, learn things more effectively, and become that go-to guy. First off…  make sure you… Know The Basics I don’t have the time to teach new developers the basics, but you gotta know them. I’ve only been “taught” two languages.. Fortran 77 and C… everything else I’ve picked up from “doing”. I HAD to know the basics though, and all new developers need to understand the very basics of development.  97.23% of all languages will have the following: Variables Functions Arrays If statements For loops / While loops If you think about it, most development is “if this, do this… or while this, do this…”.  “This” may be some unique method to your language or something you develop, but the basics are the basics. YES there are MANY other development topics you need to understand, but you shouldn’t be scratching your head trying to figure out what a ”for loop” is… (Also learn about classes and hashtables as quickly as possible). Once you have the basics down it makes it much easier to… Learn By Doing This may just apply to me and my warped brain.  I don’t learn a new technology by reading or hearing someone speak about it. I learn by doing. It does me no good to try and learn all of the intricacies of a new language or technology inside-and-out before getting my hands dirty. Just show me how to do one thing… let me get that working… then show me how to do the next thing.. let me get that working… Now, let’s see what I can figure out on my own. Okay.. now it starts to make sense. I see how the language works, I can step through the code, and before you know it.. I’m productive in a new technology. Be careful here though…. make sure you… Don’t Reinvent The Wheel People have been writing code for what… 50+ years now? So, why are you trying to tackle ANYTHING without first Googling it with Bing to see what others have done first? When I was first learning C# (I had come from a Java background) I had to call a web service.  Sure! No problem! I’d done this many times in Java. So, I proceeded to write an HTTP Handler, called the Web Service and it worked like a charm!!!  Probably about 2.3 seconds after I got it working completely someone says to me “Why didn’t you just add a Web Reference?” Really? You can do that?  oops… I just wasted a lot of time. Before undertaking the development of any sort of utility method in a new language, make sure it’s not already handled for you… Okay… you are starting to write some code and are curious about the possibilities? Well… don’t just sit there… Try It And See What Happens This is actually one of my biggest pet peeves. “So… ‘x++’ works in C#, but does it also work in JavaScript?”   Really? Did you just ask me that? In the time it spent for you to type that email, press the send button, me receive the email, get around to reading it, and replying with “yes” you could have tested it 47 times and know the answer! Just TRY it! See what happens! You aren’t doing brain surgery. You aren’t going to kill anyone, and you BETTER not be developing in production. So, you are not going to crash any production systems!! Seriously! Get off your butt and just try it yourself. The extra added benefit is that it doesn’t work, the absolute best way to learn is to… Learn From Your Failures I don’t know about you… but if I screw up and something doesn’t work, I learn A LOT more debugging my problem than if everything magically worked. It’s okay that you aren’t perfect! Not everyone can be me? In the same vein… don’t ask someone else to debug your problem until you have made a valiant attempt to do so yourself. There’s nothing quite like stepping through code line by line to see what it’s REALLY doing… and you’ll never feel more stupid sometimes than when you realize WHY it’s not working.. but you realize... you learn... and you remember. There is nothing wrong with failure as long as you learn from it. As you start writing more and more and more code make sure that you ALWAYS… Develop for Production You will soon learn that the “prototype” you wrote last week to show as a “proof of concept” is going to go directly into production no matter how much you beg and plead and try to explain it’s not ready to go into production… it’s going to go straight there.. and it’s like herpes.. it doesn’t go away and there’s no fixing it once it’s in there.  So, why not write ALL your code like it will be put in production? It MIGHT take a little longer, but in the long run it will be easier to maintain, get help on, and you won’t be embarrassed that it’s sitting on a production server for everyone to use and see. So, now that you are getting comfortable and writing code for production it is important to to remember the… KISS Principle… Learn It… Love It… Keep It Simple Stupid Seriously.. don’t try to show how smart you are by writing the most complicated code in history. Break your problem up into discrete steps and write each step. If it turns out you have some redundancy, you can always go back and tweak your code later.  How bad is it when you write code that LOOKS cocky? I’ve seen it before… some of the most abstract and complicated classes when a class wasn’t even needed! Or the most elaborate unreadable code jammed into one really long line when it could have been written in three lines, performed just as well, and been SOOO much easier to maintain. Keep it clear and simple.. baby steps people. This will help you learn the technology, debug problems, AND it will help others help you find your problems if they don’t have to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls just to figure out what you are trying to do…. Really.. don’t be that guy… try to curb your ego and… Keep an Open Mind No matter how smart you are… how fast you type… or how much you get paid, don’t let your ego get in the way. There is probably a better way to do everything you’ve ever done. Don’t become so cocky that you can’t think someone knows more than you. There’s a lot of brilliant, helpful people out there willing to show you tricks if you just give them a chance. A very super-awesome developer once told me “So what if you’ve been writing code for 10 years or more! Does your code look basically the same? Are you not growing as a developer?” Those 10 years become pretty meaningless if you just “know” that you are right and have not picked up new tips, tricks, methods, and patterns along the way. Learn from others and find out what’s new in development land (you know you don’t have to specifically use pointers anymore??). Along those same lines… If it’s not working, first assume you are doing something wrong. You have no idea how much it annoys people who are trying to help you when you first assume that the help they are trying to give you is wrong. Just MAYBE… you… the person learning is making some small mistake? Maybe you didn’t describe your problem correctly? Maybe you are using the wrong terminology? “I did exactly what you said and it didn’t work.”  Oh really? Are you SURE about that? “Your solution doesn’t work.”  Well… I’m pretty sure it works, I’ve used it 200 times… What are you doing differently? First try some humility and appreciation.. it will go much further, especially when it turns out YOU are the one that is wrong. When all else fails…. Try Professional Training Some people just don’t have the mindset to go and figure stuff out. It’s a gift and not everyone has it. If everyone could do it I wouldn’t have a job and there wouldn’t be professional training available.  So, if you’ve tried everything else and no light bulbs are coming on, contact the experts who specialize in training. Be careful though, there is bad training out there. Want to know the names of some good places? Just shoot me a message and I’ll let you know. I’m boycotting endorsing Andrew Connell anymore until I get that free course dangit!! So… that’s it.. that’s all I got right now. Maybe you thought all of this is common sense, maybe you think I’m smoking crack. If so, don’t just sit there, there’s a comments section for a reason. Finally, what about you? What tips do you have to help this aspiring to learn the dark arts??

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• Release Roundup, Jan. '10: New Year, New Gear for Java/Open Source Developers

  From usual suspects like Apache, Google and Sun and some lesser-known players, January 2010 brought a steady stream of code releases for Java and open source developers' toolboxes.

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