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  • Interviews: Going Beyond the Technical Quiz

    - by Tony Davis
    All developers will be familiar with the basic format of a technical interview. After a bout of CV-trawling to gauge basic experience, strengths and weaknesses, the interview turns technical. The whiteboard takes center stage and the challenge is set to design a function or query, or solve what on the face of it might seem a disarmingly simple programming puzzle. Most developers will have experienced those few panic-stricken moments, when one’s mind goes as blank as the whiteboard, before un-popping the marker pen, and hopefully one’s mental functions, to work through the problem. It is a way to probe the candidate’s knowledge of basic programming structures and techniques and to challenge their critical thinking. However, these challenges or puzzles, often devised by some of the smartest brains in the development team, have a tendency to become unnecessarily ‘tricksy’. They often seem somewhat academic in nature. While the candidate straight out of IT school might breeze through the construction of a Markov chain, a candidate with bags of practical experience but less in the way of formal training could become nonplussed. Also, a whiteboard and a marker pen make up only a very small part of the toolkit that a programmer will use in everyday work. I remember vividly my first job interview, for a position as technical editor. It went well, but after the usual CV grilling and technical questions, I was only halfway there. Later, they sat me alongside a team of editors, in front of a computer loaded with MS Word and copy of SQL Server Query Analyzer, and my task was to edit a real chapter for a real SQL Server book that they planned to publish, including validating and testing all the code. It was a tough challenge but I came away with a sound knowledge of the sort of work I’d do, and its context. It makes perfect sense, yet my impression is that many organizations don’t do this. Indeed, it is only relatively recently that Red Gate started to move over to this model for developer interviews. Now, instead of, or perhaps in addition to, the whiteboard challenges, the candidate can expect to sit with their prospective team, in front of Visual Studio, loaded with all the useful tools in the developer’s kit (ReSharper and so on) and asked to, for example, analyze and improve a real piece of software. The same principles should apply when interviewing for a database positon. In addition to the usual questions challenging the candidate’s knowledge of such things as b-trees, object permissions, database recovery models, and so on, sit the candidate down with the other database developers or DBAs. Arm them with a copy of Management Studio, and a few other tools, then challenge them to discover the flaws in a stored procedure, and improve its performance. Or present them with a corrupt database and ask them to get the database back online, and discover the cause of the corruption.

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  • How can a large company foster excellence in its engineers?

    - by Joshiatto
    I am tasked with improving the skills (quality & speed) of engineers in my company. Here are some ideas: Pair Programming TDD Automated Check-in Policies Talks given by experts Awards for coding excellence Encourage competition among engineers to contribute to GitHub Publish standards and practices docs on the intranet site "Gamification" of engineering. Somehow make becoming badasses into a game they will enjoy playing Training Showcase github checkins on screens around the office Add an "engineer of the month" to the intranet home page How can I drive traffic to the intranet home page? What crazy futuristic idea would drive engineers to go to the page every day to see who of their peers are making more money than them (inferred via recognition) and then go off and improve their skills and productivity to see their standings improve on the home page??? Or any ideas just to foster collaboration and love for their jobs so they start taking more pride in their work?? Don't take my ideas as symptomatic of our org. I take full responsibility for not knowing the right way to do this.

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  • Why are SW engineering interviews disproportionately difficult?

    - by stackoverflowuser2010
    First, some background on me. I have a PhD in CS and have had jobs both as a software engineer and as an R&D research scientist, both at Very Large Corporations You Know Very Well. I recently changed jobs and interviewed for both types of jobs (as I have done in the past). My observation: SW engineer job interviews are way, way disproportionately more difficult than CS researcher job interviews, but the researcher job is higher paying, more competitive, more rewarding, more interesting, and has a higher upside. Here's a typical interview loop for researcher: Phone interview to see if my research is in alignment with the lab's researcher In-person, give presentation on my recent research for one hour (which represents maybe 9 month's worth of work), answer questions In-person one-on-one interviews with about 5 researchers, where they ask me very reasonable questions on my work/publications/patents, including: technical questions, where my work fits into related work, and how I can extend my work to new areas Here's a typical interview loop for SW engineer: Phone interview where I'm asked algorithm questions and maybe do some coding. Pretty standard. In-person interviews at the whiteboard where they drill the F*** out of you on esoteric C++ minutia (e.g. how does a polymorphic virtual function call work), algorithms (make all-pairs-shortest-path algorithm work for 1B vertices), system design (design a database load balancer), etc. This goes on for six or seven interviews. Ridiculous. Why would anyone be willing to put up with this? What is the point of asking about C++ trivia or writing code to prove yourself? Why not make the SE interview more like the researcher interview where you give a talk about what you've done? How are technical job interviews for other fields, like physics, chemistry, civil engineering, mechanical engineering?

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  • Non-language-specific interview questions for a senior web developer

    - by Songo
    I came across a job posting for a senior web developer position. The posting said that the development will be done using Ruby on Rails, but no prior knowledge is required. I confirmed with a contact in that company that a PHP web developer can apply for it or even an ASP.Net developer. I also confirmed that the interview won't contain any questions specific to PHP or Ruby on Rails. Can anyone please provide a good list of questions for a senior web developer that isn't specific to a certain language? Note This question isn't a duplicate for similar posts asking for questions relating to PHP, .Net or Ruby. Also, I'm not looking for topics to learn as a web developer, but rather interesting questions for a technical interview given the former conditions.

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  • Web Developer or Software Engineer?

    - by Deepesh
    A question that I have been asking myself and really confused which path to take. So I need your guys help as to the pros and cons of these 2 professions in today's world. I love web applications development as the Web is the best thing to happen in this age and nearly everyone gets by on the World Wide Web. And also tend to keep learning about new technologies and about web services. On the other hand I like software engineering also for the desktop applications as I have had experience with development small scale softwares in VB.Net, Java, C++, etc. Which path has more scope and better future? Whats your view?

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  • Learning c++ by contributing to open source projects

    - by user1189880
    I have some general programming experience with a few different languages, my most skilled being php. I want to spend a lot of time over the next year learning c++ in much more depth and then eventually get to a good enough level to find a job as a junior developer working in c++. I really struggle to find things to develop as toy programs so want to contribute to an open source project in c++ to get really stuck in to. But the projects I see on github in c++ are very large and will require a lot of knowlege to even get started. Are there any smaller projects that I can contribute to or are there any other good ideas for learning c++ from a practical level.

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  • What to do if I am working on a language that I don't like

    - by Sayem Ahmed
    Hi there, I really don't know if this is the right place to ask this question, but if it isn't, then I guess someone will notify. Anyway, I am working in a software development farm which is currently using PowerBuilder to develop a mid-size ERP solution. The work environment and company management are so great that it may be the best in the whole Bangladesh. Only problem is the technology that are currently being used, which is this PowerBuilder. Now I am a guy who tends to prefer modern development technologies, like DI containers, ORM, TDD, JQuery etc. PowerBuilder is a great tool too, but I couldn' like the application techniques used to build PB applications. These techniques are so inheritance-dependent that many a times these create a great deal of sufferings. I remember two days ago I had to change some processing logic in a core user object and as a result I had to test and re-test all the forms that the application have(apparently, there are almost 20 forms there, each of them with 3-4 kinds of functionalities). Also, learning PB is tough, because online material on this thing is very, very low. I can't afford to read all the documentation that PB provide because I have hard deadlines on the work that I have to do. Another thing with PB is that applications tend to rely on business logic that are implemented on databases which causes debugging to be a nightmare. As a result, I don't feel motivated enough to work in this IDE/System/Framework (or whatever) anymore. My productivity has greatly decreased, and I am not delivering quality code. I think I have the following options available to me - Remain in the current job, keep delivering worse code and let my productivity decrease day by day, taking salaries and bonuses but not delivering quality codes/doing my job the way I should, Search for a new job. At this point number 2 seems a good option, but there are also some issues. As I mentioned before, our management may be the best in the country. Our company owner is himself a software developer with 24 years of experience in software development. He is currently our Team Leader and System Analyst. He is by far the greatest manager and boss I have ever seen. He understands developer's mentality very well(as he IS himself a developer). He is also a great, kind and generous guy. Our company is only a start-up company with 10 developers. Among them, only 3-4 people knows about the business logic behind the ERP, and I am one of them. If I switch my current job, it may hamper the development of this product which I really don't want. I couldn't decide what to do in this situation, so I turned to the community for advice.

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  • Mac OS & Iphone development

    - by Oynn
    I am a graphics designer. How long would it take to become fluent in Objective-c for Mac and/or iPhone app development, from no programming background? I want to quit my day job as a designer. I really don't wanna work anymore cause I don't want to have a boss. I can be a writer, or I can become a app developer. Developing mini applications & games sounds excellent to me. That's really what I want to do :) I'm a patient person and I will do whatever it takes to learn & become a good developer. Should I take any courses about app development, or can I learn on my own? Any ideas, tips?

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  • confusing about the postguaduate education.

    - by user531661
    i'm a junior studying software engineering. i like to do research on computer science but also to code some projects as a developer. i want to work for a famous company as a engineering or researcher after getting my graduate degree. and i expect that after working several years i can do some managerial roles. so which choice is the best for me? PhD in Computer Science, master in Computer science, PhD in software engineering or master in software engineering?

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  • Do game studios hire people based on their math knowledge alone?

    - by Brent Horvath
    I have very little programming skills outside of very basic levels of Java, but I have excellent math and science knowledge. I was wondering what I could offer any potential team if I were to go into video game development? Do people hire people based on their math knowledge alone? I like to do other things such as writing or drawing, but math and science are the only skills in which I really excel in.

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  • Bad style programming, am I pretending too much?

    - by Luca
    I realized to work in an office with a quite bad code base. The base library implemented in years and years is quite limited, and most of that code is, honestly, horrible. Projects developed in the office are very large. Fine. I could define me a "perfectionist" (but often I'm not), and I thought to refactor an application (really a portion), which need a new (complex) feature. But, today, I really realized that it's not possible to refactor that application modules with a reasonable time (say, 24/26 hours, respect the avaialable time for the task, which is 160 hours). I'm talking about (I am a bit ashamed to say) name collisions, large and frequent cut & paste code, horrible and misleading naming, makefiles without dependencies (!), application login is spread randomly across many different sources, dead code, variable aliasing, no assertion, no documentation, very long source files, bad/incomplete include file definition, (this is emblematic!) very frequent extern declaration of variables and functions, ... I'm sure to continue ... buffer overflows because sprintf, indentation (!), spacing, non existent const modifier usage. I would say that every source line was written quite randomly when needed, without keeping in mind some design (at least, the obvious one). (Am I in hell?) The problem arises when the application is developed by a colleague of mine. I felt very frustrated. So, I decided to expose the "situation" to my colleague; at the end, that was a bad idea. He is justified in saying that "the application was developed in haste, so it is natural that it is written vaguely; you are wasting time to think and implement an elegant implementation" .... I'm asking too much from my colleague to write readable code, which is managed and documented? I expect too much in not having to read thousands of lines of code to understand how a particular logic?

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  • Are highly capable programmers paid more than their managers?

    - by Fun Mun Pieng
    I know a lot of programmers are paid less than their managers by significant amounts, as highlighted there. How often is it that a programmer gets paid more than his manager? Or phrased different how many programmers are paid more than their managers? Personally, I know of one case. I'm asking to see how common is the case. When I say "manager", I mean anyone further up their organization hierarchy.

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  • When Programming will become deprecated [closed]

    - by Vibeeshan
    Possible Duplicate: Will programmers be around in a few years? According to the history of programming, with each new generation of software engineering it seems to become easier and easier. Machine Code - Assembly - Programming Languages - easier - more easier - etc. If this situation continues anyone will be able to program (even complex systems). Even now, most of the kids study programming at school (Pascal , VB, etc.). Will be there any jobs called software engineering in future (if everyone know to program). ....and.... What do you think about the future of software development?

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  • The University with the best Computer Science degree?

    - by Shinnok
    Which University provides the best Computer Science degree in your opinion(non US Universities welcomed too)? I do realize that you most probably didn't attend more then one University so you can't really provide a truly insightful opinion on several institutions, but what you can do instead, is describe the one you attended and outline it's strengths and weaknesses. What do i mean by the best is essentially the University that upon graduation and given a subject's assumed reasonable level of passion and interest in the field, one can trust upon the fact he was at least exposed to the best and most deep, correct and up to date courses on Programming, Operating Systems, Internet and Computer Technology overall. We have all heard of recent horror stories in Computer Science teaching, thus an exposure the best of the best, essentially the University you would grant your children to if they were to be interested into this field, would be a great thing.

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  • How popular is ITIL in the rest of the world?

    - by Oz123
    I am sorry if this question is not 100% Programming wise, I just didn't know where to ask. Consider yourself lucky if you don't know what ITIL is. You can understand from my tone I don't like it - I find ITIL the complete opposite of how IT Company should work, being too bureaucratic and complicated. In Germany, where I work, it seems to be very popular, and I have been asked in several job interviews if I know ITIL. Do you know popular is it in the rest of the world? Should I worry about ITIL or I can snub it? I must also ask my European colleagues - Why do you think is ITIL so popular? Is there a strong empirical evidence that ITIL does work? By empirical, I mean not personal experiences of the kind "We are a company that is working with ITIL...". I can hardly imagine a multi-million dollar company like Apple or Google work with ITIL, but I can also hardly see how it can benefit small companies...

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  • Will high reputation in Programmers help to get a good job?

    - by Lorenzo
    In reference to this question, do you think that having a high reputation on this site will help to get a good job? Aside silly and humorous questions, on Programmers we can see a lot of high quality theory questions. I think that, if Stack Overflow will eventually evolve in "strictly programming related" (which usually is "strictly coding related"), the questions on Programmers will be much more interesting and meaningful ("Stack Overflow" = "I have this specific coding/implementation issue"; "Programmers" = "Best practices, team shaping, paradigms, CS theory"). So could high reputation on this site help (or at least be a good reference)? And then, more o less than Stack Overflow?

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  • How to include serious personal project in Resume?

    - by mob1lejunkie
    My brother has come up with an interesting business idea that could be commercialised. For over a month I have been creating the foundation for SaaS. I have been treating this as commercial project so designing using patterns and best practices. One of the reasons I want to include this in my Resume is my full time job doesn't involve current trendy ASP.Net technologies (e.g Linq/Entity Relationships, jQuery, ASP.Net MVC 3, Silverlight, etc) so the resume lacks impact. In my full time job I work on a 7 year old well designed product and since our data and web layers work well it would be stupid to re-engineer them only because recruiters think Linq, ASP.Net MVC and jQuery are cool. How can I include my personal project in Resume so that it doesn't sound like experiment or quick'n'dirty pet project? Many thanks.

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  • What does your University 1st class mean?

    - by Abimaran
    I know, it's highly subjective question, but, I need the opinion. Please don't close this! IMHO and experience, they (the 1st class fellows) have a the resources (tutorials, past papers, etc), courage and the ability to memorize the answers on that. But, there are some talented peoples, who have the real knowledge with the 1st class. Are those peoples really win in the industries? Please don't ask my class :)

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  • Building massively scalable systems, where to start? [closed]

    - by Mahmoud Hossam
    Recently, I've been seeing these job postings about building scalable systems using Java, and some of the technologies mentioned were: Cassandra Thrift Hadoop MapReduce Among others. How can I get started with these technologies? Is there something else I need to know before actually learning any of these technologies? Maybe some general concepts about building highly available and scalable systems? I already know Java SE, so I won't be starting from scratch.

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  • Resources for Learning CSS [closed]

    - by historicus
    I am a server-side programmer that is proficient in Java. I have fairly good knowledge of client-side scripting - primarily Javascript - but my ability in CSS is lacking. While I have the know-how to modify basic styles, I'd like to understand a bit more about CSS layouts and styling. Can anyone with expert knowledge of CSS provide a good source for diving into the topic? Also, are there any short, online courses that might help in gaining the information I seek?

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  • Choosing between two programmers: experience vs. passion

    - by Duke
    I am in a position where I have to hire a programmer and have the option of 2 candidates, the first has experience but he doesn't have a passion for coding and he says so while the second doesn't have the experience but he has the passion, he did well in the interview and is certified. We have the resources to train someone, but I really don't want to blow this process and hire someone who will be disappointing. Can anyone help me as to how to approach this situation?

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  • Is it more valuable to double major in Computer Science/Software Engineering or get an undergraduate CS degree with a Masters in SE?

    - by Austin Hyde
    A friend and I (both in college) are currently in a debate over which is better, in terms of employment opportunities, experience, and education: a Bachelors degree in both Computer Science and Software Engineering, or a Bachelors in Computer Science with a Masters in Software Engineering. My point of view is that I would rather go to school for 4-4.5 years to learn both sides of the field, and be out working on real projects gaining real experience, by going the double major route. His point of view is that it would look better to potential employers if he had a Bachelors in CS and Masters in SE. That way, when he's finally done after 4 years of CS and 2-4 of SE (depending on where he goes), he can pretty much have his choosing of what he wants to do. We are both in agreement on the distinction between the two degrees: CS is "traditional" and about the theory of algorithms, data structures, and programming, where SE is the study of the design of software and the implementation of CS theory. So, what's your stance on this debate? Have you gone one route or another? And most importantly, why?

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  • Books for MCSD and advice

    - by Mahesha999
    Hi there I am thinking to get certification done for MCSD. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/cert-mcsd-web-applications.aspx I did found the books for first exam 480 comprising CSS3, HTML5 and JavaScript. However I did not found books for other exams: 486: ASP.NET MVC 4.5 Apps - Will ASP.NET 4 books suffice for this? Should I also learn Web Forms though I have considerable part of it. 487: Windows Azure and Web Services - What book should I use? I seems that the syllabus is too huge and will take considerable time. Anyone suggesting any advice to complete such exams, since this is going to be my first such. How should I prepare? Should I give this exam? Will it help? Sorry I know I asked many questions here in one questions - a bad practice but the books-question is a big concern for me.

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  • Do you actively look for a better job?

    - by Ace
    ...Even though you're basically happy where you are? I've been thinking for a while that it might be a good idea to look around, but how do you go about doing it? Do you hide the fact from your employer? What do you tell the recruiters? Can you play your current employer out against the new recruiter or vice versa, and how do you do that? Any pitfalls? Edit: I've bolded the questions that people haven't really answered yet.

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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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