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  • SQL Server IS_NULLABLE

    - by J Harley
    Good Morning, Just a quick question what this field actually means? I am trying to create an export script which follows this standard: lname varchar(30) **NOT NULL**, So if last name is_nullable=yes then would I put NULL rather than NOT NULL at the *'d code. Many Thanks, Joel

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  • ASP.NET MVC 2 - user defined database connection.

    - by J Harley
    Hello, I am looking to port my very basic DBMS software from classic ASP to ASP.net - however the user would need to input the connection details in order to connect to their specific DBMS server. Is this at all possible with ASP.NET MVC (very similar to DSN-less connections in ASP). Cheers, Joel

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  • Twitter Oauth login in a cron agent executing PHP file evenry 2 minutes

    - by CHAUDY
    Hello, I'm using Twitter Basic authentification in a CRON agent to get et savelist of tweets in SQL db of 5 of my twitter account. Because we have to use Oauth after June 30th I'm searching to know how can I use oauth without connecting me manually. In fact I don't have user interface in my PHP file executed every 2 minutes. Thanks in advance for your help. Joel.

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  • What was the single byte change to port WordStar from CP/M to DOS?

    - by amarillion
    I was re-reading Joel's Strategy Letter II: Chicken and Egg problems and came across this fun quote: In fact, WordStar was ported to DOS by changing one single byte in the code. (Real Programmers can tell you what that byte was, I've long since forgotten). I couldn't find any other references to this with a quick Google search. Is this true or just a figure of speech? In the interest of my quest to become a "Real Programmer", what was the single byte change?

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  • Is Unit Testing important?

    - by PieterG
    I've recently been catching up on my podcasts and reading and found this article from Joel Spolsky. The Question that I for all of you is the following. Is Unit Testing Important? What do you test? Do you write unit tests on all your projects? I suppose this question is a bit more of a poll on unit test coverage.

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  • Finding a Identity Specification using SQL

    - by J Harley
    Good Morning, I have an MS SQL database, of which there is a column that has an identity specification. However, if I do a SQL query such as: SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.Columns where TABLE_NAME = It doesn't tell me if the column is an identity specification - is there a query that will? Many Thanks, Joel

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  • What's wrong with foreign keys?

    - by kronoz
    I remember hearing Joel mention in the podcast that he'd barely ever used a foreign key (if I remember correctly). However, to me they seem pretty vital to avoid duplication and subsequent data integrity problems throughout your database. Do people have some solid reasons as to why (to avoid a discussion in lines with SO principals)? Edit: "I've yet to have a reason to create a foreign key, so this might be my first reason to actually set up one."

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  • FreeBSD with Vagrant - don't know how to check guest additions version

    - by joelmaranhao
    On Mac OS X 10.9.3 Picked a box from the VagrantCloud Init the vagrant box $ vagrant init chef/freebsd-9.2-i386 A `Vagrantfile` has been placed in this directory. You are now ready to `vagrant up` your first virtual environment! Please read the comments in the Vagrantfile as well as documentation on `vagrantup.com` for more information on using Vagrant. List the files $ ls -al -rw-r--r-- 1 joel staff 4831 Jun 5 17:17 Vagrantfile Vagrantfile content VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION = "2" Vagrant.configure(VAGRANTFILE_API_VERSION) do |config| config.vm.box = "chef/freebsd-9.2-i386" end Starting my virtual box leads to Errors $ vagrant up Bringing machine 'default' up with 'virtualbox' provider... ==> default: Box 'chef/freebsd-9.2-i386' could not be found. Attempting to find and install... default: Box Provider: virtualbox default: Box Version: >= 0 ==> default: Loading metadata for box 'chef/freebsd-9.2-i386' default: URL: https://vagrantcloud.com/chef/freebsd-9.2-i386 ==> default: Adding box 'chef/freebsd-9.2-i386' (v1.0.0) for provider: virtualbox default: Downloading: https://vagrantcloud.com/chef/freebsd-9.2-i386/version/1/provider/virtualbox.box ==> default: Successfully added box 'chef/freebsd-9.2-i386' (v1.0.0) for 'virtualbox'! ==> default: Importing base box 'chef/freebsd-9.2-i386'... ==> default: Matching MAC address for NAT networking... ==> default: Checking if box 'chef/freebsd-9.2-i386' is up to date... ==> default: Setting the name of the VM: freebsd92-i386_default_1401982167145_49633 ==> default: Fixed port collision for 22 => 2222. Now on port 2201. ==> default: Clearing any previously set network interfaces... ==> default: Preparing network interfaces based on configuration... default: Adapter 1: nat ==> default: Forwarding ports... default: 22 => 2201 (adapter 1) ==> default: Booting VM... ==> default: Waiting for machine to boot. This may take a few minutes... default: SSH address: 127.0.0.1:2201 default: SSH username: vagrant default: SSH auth method: private key default: Warning: Connection timeout. Retrying... default: Warning: Connection timeout. Retrying... ==> default: Machine booted and ready! Sorry, don't know how to check guest version of Virtualbox Guest Additions on this platform. Stopping installation. ==> default: Checking for guest additions in VM... default: The guest additions on this VM do not match the installed version of default: VirtualBox! In most cases this is fine, but in rare cases it can default: prevent things such as shared folders from working properly. If you see default: shared folder errors, please make sure the guest additions within the default: virtual machine match the version of VirtualBox you have installed on default: your host and reload your VM. default: default: Guest Additions Version: 4.2.16 default: VirtualBox Version: 4.3 ==> default: Mounting shared folders... default: /vagrant => /Users/joel/Code/anybots/operations/robot/freebsd92-i386 Vagrant attempted to execute the capability 'mount_virtualbox_shared_folder' on the detect guest OS 'freebsd', but the guest doesn't support that capability. This capability is required for your configuration of Vagrant. Please either reconfigure Vagrant to avoid this capability or fix the issue by creating the capability. Note that I have recently installed the latest version of VirtualBox, but somehow I can't find the Guest Additions.

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  • XNA Notes 008

    - by George Clingerman
    This week has been a rough one. I’ve been sick and then in some kind of slump for my afternoon coding sessions. It could be from the cold, could be I’m still tired from writing that Windows Phone 7 game development book (which is out now!) or it could just be I’m tired of winter and want some sunshine. All I know is that even while I’m stick, the XNA world keeps going along at it’s whirlwind pace. Below are the things I caught in between my coughing fits.. Time Critical XNA News: The 2011 MVP summit is almost here so pass along your feelings and thoughts so the MVPs can take them and share them with the team in person http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/76317/464136.aspx#464136 Dream Build Play - there’s no new announcement yet, but you can’t get much more to the end of February than this! http://www.dreambuildplay.com/Main/Home.aspx XNA Team: Dean Johnson from the XNA team shares an excellent way of handling Guide.IsTrialMode on WP7 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dejohn/archive/2011/02/21/calling-guide-istrialmode-on-windows-phone-7.aspx Nick Gravelyn tries a new tactic in deciding if there’s enough interest to develop a sequel or not. Don’t YOU want Pixel Man 2 to come out? http://nickgravelyn.com/pixelman2/ XNA MVPs: Andy “The ZMan” Dunn finally shares what he’s been secretly working on these past 4 months http://twitter.com/#!/The_Zman/status/40590269392887808 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg8Z0ZdYbvg&feature=youtu.be Joel Martinez lets developers around NYC know they should by signing up for Game Hack Day http://twitter.com/joelmartinez/statuses/41118590862102528 http://gamehackday.org/71fdk XNA Developers: Michael McLaughlin shares an XNA RenderTarget2D Sample http://geekswithblogs.net/mikebmcl/archive/2011/02/18/xna-rendertarget2d-sample.aspx Martin Caine starts a new series on Deferred Rendering in XNA 4.0 http://twitter.com/#!/MartinCaine/status/39735221339291648 http://martincaine.com/xna/deferred_rendering_in_xna_4_introduction ElemenyCy posts about his fun time with the IntermediateSerializer http://www.ubergamermonkey.com/xna/holy-bloated-xml-batman/ Ben Kane releases a narrated dev diary video for Project Splice. Let him know if you’d like to see more! (I know I do!) http://twitter.com/#!/benkane/status/39846959498002432 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EmziXZUo08&feature=youtu.be Jason Swearingen (of Novaleaf) posts his part 1 of Spatial Partitioning solutions http://altdevblogaday.org/2011/02/21/spatial-partitioning-part-1-survey-of-spatial-partitioning-solutions/ Brian Lawson of Dark Flow Studios shares what his been up to lately with lots of pretty screenshots and hints of announcements from Microsoft... http://www.darkflowstudios.com/entry/short-and-sweet-part-1 Luke Avery starts a new blog where he plans on making XNA tutorials for beginners (and he’s got a few started already!) http://programmingwithovery.wordpress.com/ Xbox LIVE Indie Games (XBLIG): GameMarx Episode 10 http://www.gamemarx.com/video/the-show/24/ep-10-february-18-2010.aspx Minecraft clone FortressCraft coming to XBLIG http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-23-minecraft-clone-fortresscraft-hits-xblig ezMuze+ starts an IndieGoGo fundraiser campaign to help fund their second game and get it onto even more devices! http://www.indiegogo.com/ezmuze Gamergeddon XBLIG round up http://www.gamergeddon.com/2011/02/20/xbox-indie-game-round-up-february-20th/?utm_campaign=twitter&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitter JForce Games loses their Ego http://jforcegames.com/blog/index.php?itemid=121&catid=4 XNA Game Development: @BallerIndustry reminds all XNA developers that the Maths are important ;) http://twitter.com/#!/BallerIndustry/status/39317618280243200 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjV3XDFsjP4&feature=player_embedded#at=106 @suhinini stumbles on an older but extremely useful post on XNA Content Pipeline debugging http://twitter.com/#!/suhinini/status/39270189476352000 http://badcorporatelogo.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/xna-content-pipeline-debugging-4-0/ XNA Game Development Workshops at Singapore Universities http://innovativesingapore.com/2011/02/xna-game-development-workshops-at-singapore-universities/ Indiefreaks announces that IGF v0.3 is out with Xbox 360 support, SunBurn 2.0.12 and it’s now Open Source! http://twitter.com/#!/indiefreaks/status/39391953971982336 @liotral announces a new series on properly designing a game http://twitter.com/#!/liortal53/status/39466905081217024 http://liortalblog.wordpress.com/2011/02/20/hello-cosmos/ Indies and XNA at CodeStock 2011 http://www.gamemarx.com/news/2011/02/20/indies-and-xna-at-codestock-2011.aspx Train Frontier Express posts about XNA Content Hotloading http://trainfrontierexpress.blogspot.com/2011/02/xna-content-hotloading-overview.html Slyprid announces a new character editor in Transmute http://twitter.com/#!/slyprid/status/40146992818696192 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKhFAc78LDs&feature=youtu.be The XNA 2D from the ground up tutorial series http://xna-uk.net/blogs/darkgenesis/archive/2011/02/23/recap-the-xna-2d-from-the-ground-up-tutorial-series.aspx Sgt.Conker posts a “Clingerman” (hey that’s me!) to stay relevant http://www.sgtconker.com/2011/02/posting-a-clingerman-to-stay-relevant/

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  • .NET "must-have" development tools

    - by nzpcmad
    James Avery wrote a classic article a while back entitled Ten Must-Have Tools Every Developer Should Download Now which is a companion to Visual Studio Add-Ins Every Developer Should Download Now and Scott Hanselman has an excellent list on his blog but if you were on a desert island and were only allowed three .NET development tools which ones would you pick? Update: Assuming you already have an IDE like Visual Studio ... Update (5) : Up to 08/01 : The current state of play: Reflector 13 Resharper 9 NUnit + TestDriven.Net 7 Refactor Pro 4 Process Explorer (other Sysinternals) 3 SnippetCompiler 3 CodeRush 3 MSDN Library 2 LinqPad 2 Cruisecontrol.net 2 VMWare 2 RhinoMocks 2 Fiddler 2 PowerShell 2 PowerCommands for VS 2008 1 Sandcastle 1 SQL Profiler 1 Redgate ANTS profiler 11 NCover 1 VisualSVN 1 Rubber Ducky 1 WinMerge 1 NAnt 1 ViEmu 1 AnkhSVN 1 dotTrace Profiler 1 BeyondCompare 1 DPack VS Plugin 1 WCF Trace Viewer (SDK) 1 xUnit.net 1 SourceGear DiffMerge 1 Ghostdoc 1 Expression Studio 1 XAML Pad 1 KaXaml 1 Blender for 3D modeling 1 Snoop a WPF tool 1 DiffMerge 1 DPack 1 NDepend 1 Kodos 1 WatiN 1 HTTPWatch Basic Edition 1 Paint.Net 1 Mole For VS 1 What I find particularly interesting about this is that "NUnit + TestDriven.Net " is right up there in third place which shows the growing emphasis on testing as an integral part of the development process rather than as an adjunct which is simply bolted on. And I'm somewhat perplexed that Codesmith didn't receive a single vote?

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  • The Coolest Server Names

    - by deadprogrammer
    These days server naming is a bit of a lost art. Most large organizations don't allow for fanciful names and name their servers with jumbles of digits and letters. In the olden days just about every system administrator came up with a unique naming scheme, well, sometimes unique - many just settled for Star Trek characters. To this day my favorite server name is Qantas - a Unix server that Joel Spolsky has or used to have. Why Qantas? You'd have to ask Rainman. So my question is this - what is the coolest server name or naming convention that you encountered? Let the geekfest begin. This question is marked "community wiki", so I am not getting any "rep" from it.

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  • Paying great programmers more than average programmers

    - by Kelly French
    It's fairly well recognized that some programmers are up to 10 times more productive than others. Joel mentions this topic on his blog. There is a whole blog devoted to the idea of the "10x productive programmer". In years since the original study, the general finding that "There are order-of-magnitude differences among programmers" has been confirmed by many other studies of professional programmers (Curtis 1981, Mills 1983, DeMarco and Lister 1985, Curtis et al. 1986, Card 1987, Boehm and Papaccio 1988, Valett and McGarry 1989, Boehm et al 2000). Fred Brooks mentions the wide range in the quality of designers in his "No Silver Bullet" article, The differences are not minor--they are rather like the differences between Salieri and Mozart. Study after study shows that the very best designers produce structures that are faster, smaller, simpler, cleaner, and produced with less effort. The differences between the great and the average approach an order of magnitude. The study that Brooks cites is: H. Sackman, W.J. Erikson, and E.E. Grant, "Exploratory Experimental Studies Comparing Online and Offline Programming Performance," Communications of the ACM, Vol. 11, No. 1 (January 1968), pp. 3-11. The way programmers are paid by employers these days makes it almost impossible to pay the great programmers a large multiple of what the entry-level salary is. When the starting salary for a just-graduated entry-level programmer, we'll call him Asok (From Dilbert), is $40K, even if the top programmer, we'll call him Linus, makes $120K that is only a multiple of 3. I'd be willing to be that Linus does much more than 3 times what Asok does, so why wouldn't we expect him to get paid more as well? Here is a quote from Stroustrup: "The companies are complaining because they are hurting. They can't produce quality products as cheaply, as reliably, and as quickly as they would like. They correctly see a shortage of good developers as a part of the problem. What they generally don't see is that inserting a good developer into a culture designed to constrain semi-skilled programmers from doing harm is pointless because the rules/culture will constrain the new developer from doing anything significantly new and better." This leads to two questions. I'm excluding self-employed programmers and contractors. If you disagree that's fine but please include your rationale. It might be that the self-employed or contract programmers are where you find the top-10 earners, but please provide a explanation/story/rationale along with any anecdotes. [EDIT] I thought up some other areas in which talent/ability affects pay. Financial traders (commodities, stock, derivatives, etc.) designers (fashion, interior decorators, architects, etc.) professionals (doctor, lawyer, accountant, etc.) sales Questions: Why aren't the top 1% of programmers paid like A-list movie stars? What would the industry be like if we did pay the "Smart and gets things done" programmers 6, 8, or 10 times what an intern makes? [Footnote: I posted this question after submitting it to the Stackoverflow podcast. It was included in episode 77 and I've written more about it as a Codewright's Tale post 'Of Rockstars and Bricklayers'] Epilogue: It's probably unfair to exclude contractors and the self-employed. One aspect of the highest earners in other fields is that they are free-agents. The competition for their skills is what drives up their earning power. This means they can not be interchangeable or otherwise treated as a plug-and-play resource. I liked the example in one answer of a major league baseball team trying to field two first-basemen. Also, something that Joel mentioned in the Stackoverflow podcast (#77). There are natural dynamics to shrink any extreme performance/pay ranges between the highs and lows. One is the peer pressure of organizations to pay within a given range, another is the likelyhood that the high performer will realize their undercompensation and seek greener pastures.

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  • Microsoft’s Contribution to jQuery – Client Templating

    - by joelvarty
    I am interested to see the community’s response to Microsoft’s contributions to jQuery.  I have been using jTemplates on and off in my apps for a while, but I will certainly check out the new templating plugins put forth by MS and explained here by Scott Guthrie. It may be that some are against the very idea of a company like Microsoft being involved with jQuery, and Scott explains the process with the following: “jQuery has a fantastic developer community, and a very open way to propose suggestions and make contributions.  Microsoft is following the same process to contribute to jQuery as any other member of the community.” I think we can take this in one of two ways:  It’s great that Microsoft sees themselves as a part of a greater community that they can support. It’s the first step in Microsoft’s attempt to usurp the community and have greater control over the web, it’s standards, and it’s developer community. Personally, I believe Microsoft sees the world (and the web) differently from how they did back when IE had more than %80 of the browser market.  Now, in order to keep it’s development products relevant, they are pushing Asp.Net (as they have been for a few years) towards a more open strategy that’s more “web-like” in my opinion. These contributions to jQuery are a good thing, I think.  Now, let’s go try out these new plug-ins and see if they stack up… more later - joel

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  • Are programmers bad testers?

    - by jhsowter
    I know this sounds a lot like other questions which have already being asked, but it is actually slightly different. It seems to be generally considered that programmers are not good at performing the role of testing an application. For example: Joel on Software - Top Five (Wrong) Reasons You Don't Have Testers (emphasis mine) Don't even think of trying to tell college CS graduates that they can come work for you, but "everyone has to do a stint in QA for a while before moving on to code". I've seen a lot of this. Programmers do not make good testers, and you'll lose a good programmer, who is a lot harder to replace. And in this question, one of the most popular answers says (again, my emphasis): Developers can be testers, but they shouldn't be testers. Developers tend to unintentionally/unconciously avoid to use the application in a way that might break it. That's because they wrote it and mostly test it in the way it should be used. So the question is are programmers bad at testing? What evidence or arguments are there to support this conclusion? Are programmers only bad at testing their own code? Is there any evidence to suggest that programmers are actually good at testing? What do I mean by "testing?" I do not mean unit testing or anything that is considered part of the methodology used by the software team to write software. I mean some kind of quality assurance method that is used after the code has been built and deployed to whatever that software team would call the "test environment."

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  • enable email on Godaddy when using Zerigo on Heroku hosted app

    - by joelmaranhao
    A little recap of what I have done ... and then my questions Q1, Q2 and Q3 1 - I developed a RoR app that I deployed on Heroku. biowatts.heroku.com 2 - I bought a domain name at GoDaddy: biowattsonline.com 3 - I am using Zerigo addon as for the DNS heroku addons:add custom_domains heroku addons:add zerigo_dns:basic 4 - Added my domains in Heroku heroku domains:add biowattsonline.com heroku domains:add www.biowattsonline.com and subdomains heroku domains:add calculator.biowattsonline.com Q1: Where do we configure the forward to http://biowattsonline.com/biogas_calculator ? 5 - Configured GoDaddy adding the Zerigo domains In the Nameservers section a.ns.zerigo.net b.ns.zerigo.net c.ns.zerigo.net d.ns.zerigo.net e.ns.zerigo.net The GoDaddy DNS section is empty: "Not hosted here" Ok this works all fine ... http://biowattsonline.com is correctly found 6 - Subdomain forward I want calculator.biowattsonline.com to be forwarded to biowattsonline.com/biogas_calculator Q2: So I created the forward in GoDaddy ... but is that correct? 7 - GoDaddy email Q3: I have one free email account with go GoDaddy, only now that I am using Zerigo I don't know how configure GoDaddy to make it work again?... because it work with the default values Any ideason Q1, Q2 and Q3? Thanks, Joel

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  • Why are marketing employees, product managers, etc. deserving of their own office, yet programmers are jammed in a room as many as possible?

    - by TheImirOfGroofunkistan
    I don't understand why many (many) companies treat software developers like they are assembly line workers making widgets. Joel Spolsky has a great example of the problems this creates: With programmers, it's especially hard. Productivity depends on being able to juggle a lot of little details in short term memory all at once. Any kind of interruption can cause these details to come crashing down. When you resume work, you can't remember any of the details (like local variable names you were using, or where you were up to in implementing that search algorithm) and you have to keep looking these things up, which slows you down a lot until you get back up to speed. Here's the simple algebra. Let's say (as the evidence seems to suggest) that if we interrupt a programmer, even for a minute, we're really blowing away 15 minutes of productivity. For this example, lets put two programmers, Jeff and Mutt, in open cubicles next to each other in a standard Dilbert veal-fattening farm. Mutt can't remember the name of the Unicode version of the strcpy function. He could look it up, which takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which takes 15 seconds. Since he's sitting right next to Jeff, he asks Jeff. Jeff gets distracted and loses 15 minutes of productivity (to save Mutt 15 seconds). Now let's move them into separate offices with walls and doors. Now when Mutt can't remember the name of that function, he could look it up, which still takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which now takes 45 seconds and involves standing up (not an easy task given the average physical fitness of programmers!). So he looks it up. So now Mutt loses 30 seconds of productivity, but we save 15 minutes for Jeff. Ahhh! Quote Link More Spolsky on Offices Why don't managers and owner's see this?

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  • You Might Be a SharePoint Professional If&hellip;

    - by Mark Rackley
    I really think no explanation is needed. Hope this makes you smile.. Thanks again for being an awesome SharePoint community! If you can only dream about working an 8 hour day, there’s a good chance you are a SharePoint professional. You might be a SharePoint professional if the last time you heard “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” you wondered “How many web front ends does it have?” If you consider Twitter the best form of support since the dawn of the Internet, you might be a SharePoint professional. If you are giddy-as-a-school-girl excited about going to Anaheim in October and it has NOTHING to do with Disneyland, you might be a SharePoint professional. You might be a SharePoint professional if you own more SharePoint shirts than you do pairs of underwear. If you’ve thought of giving up a career in the IT world for a job taking orders at a fast food chain, you might be a SharePoint professional. You might be a SharePoint professional if the only people who understand the words that come out of your mouth are other SharePoint people. If you put the word “Share” or “SP” in front of EVERYTHING (ShareFood, SPRunner, etc… etc…) then you might be a SharePoint professional. You are probably a SharePoint professional if you love SharePoint.. you hate SharePoint… you love SharePoint… you hate SharePoint… If the only thing you’d rather do more than SharePoint is SharePint, then you are definitely a SharePoint professional. You might be a SharePoint professional if your idea of name dropping is “Andrew Connell says…” or “According to Todd Klindt”… or even “Well, when I was stuck in a Turkish prison with Joel Oleson…”

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  • Why do marketing employees get their own office, yet programmers are jammed in a room as many as possible?

    - by TheImirOfGroofunkistan
    I don't understand why many (many) companies treat software developers like they are assembly line workers making widgets. Joel Spolsky has a great example of the problems this creates: With programmers, it's especially hard. Productivity depends on being able to juggle a lot of little details in short term memory all at once. Any kind of interruption can cause these details to come crashing down. When you resume work, you can't remember any of the details (like local variable names you were using, or where you were up to in implementing that search algorithm) and you have to keep looking these things up, which slows you down a lot until you get back up to speed. Here's the simple algebra. Let's say (as the evidence seems to suggest) that if we interrupt a programmer, even for a minute, we're really blowing away 15 minutes of productivity. For this example, lets put two programmers, Jeff and Mutt, in open cubicles next to each other in a standard Dilbert veal-fattening farm. Mutt can't remember the name of the Unicode version of the strcpy function. He could look it up, which takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which takes 15 seconds. Since he's sitting right next to Jeff, he asks Jeff. Jeff gets distracted and loses 15 minutes of productivity (to save Mutt 15 seconds). Now let's move them into separate offices with walls and doors. Now when Mutt can't remember the name of that function, he could look it up, which still takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which now takes 45 seconds and involves standing up (not an easy task given the average physical fitness of programmers!). So he looks it up. So now Mutt loses 30 seconds of productivity, but we save 15 minutes for Jeff. Ahhh! Quote Link More Spolsky on Offices Why don't managers and owner's see this?

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  • Programming concepts taken from the arts and humanities

    - by Joey Adams
    After reading Paul Graham's essay Hackers and Painters and Joel Spolsky's Advice for Computer Science College Students, I think I've finally gotten it through my thick skull that I should not be loath to work hard in academic courses that aren't "programming" or "computer science" courses. To quote the former: I've found that the best sources of ideas are not the other fields that have the word "computer" in their names, but the other fields inhabited by makers. Painting has been a much richer source of ideas than the theory of computation. — Paul Graham, "Hackers and Painters" There are certainly other, much stronger reasons to work hard in the "boring" classes. However, it'd also be neat to know that these classes may someday inspire me in programming. My question is: what are some specific examples where ideas from literature, art, humanities, philosophy, and other fields made their way into programming? In particular, ideas that weren't obviously applied the way they were meant to (like most math and domain-specific knowledge), but instead gave utterance or inspiration to a program's design and choice of names. Good examples: The term endian comes from Gulliver's Travels by Tom Swift (see here), where it refers to the trivial matter of which side people crack open their eggs. The terms journal and transaction refer to nearly identical concepts in both filesystem design and double-entry bookkeeping (financial accounting). mkfs.ext2 even says: Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done Off-topic: Learning to write English well is important, as it enables a programmer to document and evangelize his/her software, as well as appear competent to other programmers online. Trigonometry is used in 2D and 3D games to implement rotation and direction aspects. Knowing finance will come in handy if you want to write an accounting package. Knowing XYZ will come in handy if you want to write an XYZ package. Arguably on-topic: The Monad class in Haskell is based on a concept by the same name from category theory. Actually, Monads in Haskell are monads in the category of Haskell types and functions. Whatever that means...

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  • Restoring an Ubuntu Server using ZFS RAIDZ for data

    - by andybjackson
    Having become disillusioned with hacking Buffalo NAS devices, I've decided to roll my own Home server. After some research, I have settled on an HP Proliant Microserver with Ubuntu Server and ZFS (OS on 1 Ext4 disk, Data on 3 RAIDZ disks). As Joel Spolsky and Geoff Atwood say with regards to backup, I can't rest until I have done a restore in all of the failure scenarios that I am seeking to protect against. Q: How to configure Ubuntu Server to recognise a pre-existing RAIDZ array? Clearly if one of the data disks die - then that is a resilvering scenario, which is well documented. If two of the data disks die, then I am into regular backup/restore land. If the OS dies and I can restore, also an easy scenario. But if the OS dies and I can't restore, then I need to recreate an Ubuntu server. But how do I get this to recognise my RAID-Z array? Is the necessary configuration information stored within and across the RAIZ array and simply need to be found (if so, how)? Or does it reside on the OS ext4 disk (in which case how do I recreate it)?

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  • Manager keeps changing requirement specification after every demo.

    - by Jungle Hunter
    Background of my working environment My manager has no background or understanding of computers or software whatsoever. It is highly likely he hasn't seen code in any form (not even from a physical distance of 10 feet or less) in his life. There is no one who understands the complexity of what I am asked to implement. To the point that if I semi-hardcode no one would know. On Joel's test we score an unbelievable score 0. The problems The manager and at times other "senior" keep changing the requirement specification. Changes which, if good engineering be done and not patchy "fixes", require change in the underlying design. There is absolutely no one who looks at code (probably because no one knows how to, or even if it should be done) which means no one will ever be able to: Appreciate the complexity of the problem or the elegance of the solution. Suggest improvement to the approach. Appreciate the quality of the code. Point out where the code can be improved. A lot of jargon is used which makes sense grammatically but fails to make any sense any other way. Doesn't feel, behave or work like a software company. The question What should be done? Especially regarding there being no one who would point out improvements in my code. Update To answer HLGEM's (and possibly others) question about what I've done to try and fix it. I offered to set up Redmine and introduce source control to everyone. I said I would recommend distributed (git or mercurial) but will also talk about centralized ones and let the team decide. Response was that things are being done and will be done within weeks. Haven't seen that nor am I aware if other parts of the company use it.

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