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How to explain a layperson why a developer should not be interrupted while neck-deep in coding?

- by András Szepesházi

If you just consider the second part of my question, "Why a developer should not be interrupted while neck-deep in coding", that has been discussed a number of times by smart people. Heck, even the co-founder of SO, Joel Spolsky, wrote a blog post about "getting in the zone" and "being knocked out of the zone" and why it takes an average of 15 minutes to achieve productivity when participating in complex, software development related tasks. So I think the why has been established. What I'm interested in is how to explain all that to somebody who doesn't know beans about Beans (khmm I mean software development). How to tell the wife, or the funny guy from accounting at the workplace, or the long time friend who pings you on Skype every 30 minutes with a "Wazzzzzzup?!", that all the interruptions have a much deeper impact on your work than the obvious 30 seconds they took from your time. Obviously you can't explain it by sentences like "I have to juggle a lot of variable names in my short term memory" unless you want to be the target of blank stares or friendly abuse. I'd like to be able to explain all that to non-developers in a way that will make them clearly understand - without being offensive, elitist or too technical.

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What to do when you're the interviewer and you don't like your job?

- by emcb

I'm in a sorta strange predicament, and I could use some advice. When I was interviewing for my current job, the job description I was given seemed pretty darn nice to me. Without going into the details, the job hasn't quite turned out the way it was advertised. The company is great and takes care of its employees, but for someone who cares about the code they write and the work they do, it's a bad environment - effectively, we operate between 0.5 and 1.0 on the Joel test, and due to political issues we're not going to move beyond that any time soon. Bitter? Maybe. OK...so I'm in the market for a new job. But that's not where my dilemma is. The problem that I see coming is that I will be participating in interviewing some candidates for a position on my team, and I'm not sure what to do. I've heard through the grapevine that we have some really solid, promising, fresh-out-of-college prospects coming in to interview, and I honestly dread the thought of somebody having their first experience of engineering in this department. So I'm wondering: what should I do if/when the interviewee asks me "Do you like your job?" (no) "What kind of projects would I be working on?" (mostly static HTML/CSS changes) Anything else that would elicit a negative answer if told truthfully Do I tell the truth, to give the candidate a real picture of the job? What if this scares them away, and what if it gets blamed on me? Do I fib or lie, saying we work on exciting projects with lots of flexibility, like the pitch my boss will give when the reality is quite different? Should I feel any kind of moral responsibility to let a promising young developer know that this isn't the job for them, or should I shut up and be loyal 100% to the company? Any approaches or advice is appreciated. I hope I don't come across as overly dramatic - I honestly struggle with this question.

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Office design and layout for agile development

- by Adam Eberbach

(moved from stackoverflow) I have found lot of discussions here on about which keyboard, desk, light or colored background is best - but I can't find one addressing the layout of the whole office. We are a company with about 20 employees moving to a new place, something larger. There are two main development practices going on here with regular combination, the back end people often needing to work with the mobile people to arrange web services. There are about twice as many back end people as mobile people. About half of the back end developers are working on-site at any time and while they are almost never all in the office at once at least 5-10 spaces need to be provided - so most of the time the two groups are about equal. We have the chance to arrange desks, partitions and possibly even walls to make the space good. There won't be cash for dot-com frills like catering or massages but now's the time to be planning to avoid ending up with a bunch of desks in a long line. Joel on Software's Bionic Office is an article I've remembered from way back and it has some good ideas but I* (and more importantly the company's owners) are not completely sold on the privacy idea in an environment where we are supposed to be collaborating. This is another great link - The Ultimate Software Development Office Layout - I hadn't even remembered enclosed meeting rooms until reading this. Does the private office stand in the way of agile development? Is the scrum enough forced contact and if you need to bug someone you should need to get up and knock on their door? What design layouts can you point to and why would you recommend them? *I'm not against closed offices at all but would be happy if some other solution can do just as well. If it can't... well, that's what this question is all about.

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Advice: How to convince my newly annointed team lead against writing the code base from scratch

- by shan23

I work in a pretty reknowned MNC, and the module that I work in has been assigned to a new "lead". The code base is pretty huge (~130K or more, with inter dependencies on other modules) , but stable - some parts have grown ugly over the years, but its provably in working state. (Our products are running for years on them, even new ones). The problem is, our lead wants to rewrite the code from scratch, to encompass "finer granularity and a proactive design". I know in my guts thats not a very good idea, but how do I convince him/the rest of the team(who are pretty much more senior than me in terms of years of exp), without sounding too pedantic myself (Thou shalt not rewrite , as Joel et al have clear articles prohibiting it)? I have a good working relation with the person concerned, and don't want to ruin it, but neither do I want to be party to a decision which would surely plague us for years to come !! Any suggestions for a milder,yet effective approach ? Even accounts of how you have tackled such a situation to your liking would help me a lot! EDIT: The code base I'm talking about is not a product/GUI, but at kernel level with all the critical functionalities for our product. I hope now you know why i sound so apprehensive !!

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Is these company terms good for a programmer or should I move?

- by o_O

Here are some of the terms and conditions set forward by my employer. Does these make sense for a job like programming? No freelancing in any way even in your free time outside company work hours (may be okay. May be they wanted their employees to be fully concentrating on their full time job. Also they don't want their employees to do similar work for a competing client. Completely rational in that sense). - So sort of agreed. Any thing you develop like ideas, design, code etc while I'm employed there, makes them the owner of that. Seriously? Don't you think that its bad (for me)? If I'm to develop something in my free time (by cutting down sleep and hard working), outside the company time and resource, is that claim rational? I heard that Steve Wozniak had such a contract while he was working at HP. But that sort of hardware design and also those companies pay well, when compared to the peanuts I get. No other kind of works allowed. Means no open source stuffs. Fully dedicated to being a puppet for the employer, though the working environment is sort of okay. According to my assessment this place would score a 10/12 in Joel's test. So are these terms okay especially considering the fact that I'm underpaid with peanuts?

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How to explain a layperson why a developer should not be interrupted while neck-deep in coding?

- by András Szepesházi

If you just consider the second part of my question, "Why a developer should not be interrupted while neck-deep in coding", that has been discussed a number of times by smart people. Heck, even the co-founder of SO, Joel Spolsky, wrote a blog post about "getting in the zone" and "being knocked out of the zone" and why it takes an average of 15 minutes to achieve productivity when participating in complex, software development related tasks. So I think the why has been established. What I'm interested in is how to explain all that to somebody who doesn't know beans about Beans (khmm I mean software development). How to tell the wife, or the funny guy from accounting at the workplace, or the long time friend who pings you on Skype every 30 minutes with a "Wazzzzzzup?!", that all the interruptions have a much deeper impact on your work than the obvious 30 seconds they took from your time. Obviously you can't explain it by sentences like "I have to juggle a lot of variable names in my short term memory" unless you want to be the target of blank stares or friendly abuse. I'd like to be able to explain all that to non-developers in a way that will make them clearly understand - without being offensive, elitist or too technical. EDIT: Thanks to everyone for their great insights. I've accepted EpsilonVector's answer as his analogy was the closest one to my original needs. The "falling asleep" explanation is neither offensive nor technical, almost anyone can relate to it, and the consequences of getting disturbed while falling asleep or while being in the zone are very similar: you experience frustration and you "lose" 15-20 minutes of time.

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In agile environment, how is bug tracking and iteration tracking consolidated.

- by DXM

This topic stemmed from my other question about management-imposed waterfall-like schedule. From the responses in the other thread, I gathered this much about what is generally advised: Each story should be completed with no bugs. Story is not closed until all bugs have been addressed. No news there and I think we can all agree with this. If at a later date QA (or worse yet a customer) finds a bug, the report goes into a bug tracking database and also becomes a story which should be prioritized just like all other work. Does this sum up general handling of bugs in agile environment? If yes, the part I'm curious about is how do teams handle tracking in two different systems? (unless most teams don't have different systems). I've read a lot of advice (including Joel's blog) on software development in general and specifically on importance of a good bug tracking tool. At the same time when you read books on agile methodology, none of them seem to cover this topic because in "pure" agile, you finish iteration with no bugs. Feels like there's a hole there somewhere. So how do real teams operate? To track iterations you'd use (whiteboard, Rally...), to track bugs you'd use something from another set of products (if you are lucky enough, you might even get stuck with HP Quality Center). Should there be 2 separate systems? If they are separate, do teams spend time creating import/sync functionality between them? What have you done in your company? Is bug tracking software even used? Or do you just go straight to creating a story?

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Lack of PHP experience = reduced compensation?

- by Jake Tacholsavacky

I interviewed for a C++ position at this company, and while they say that I knocked my interview out of the park, they also say that I am too senior for the position. Instead they would like to offer me a job programming in PHP. Unfortunately my PHP experience is limited. Because of this, they are expecting me to take a significant drop in salary with the hope that I will master PHP within a year and be promoted at my first annual performance review. I don't believe that this is reasonable. I agree with Joel when he writes, "Don’t look for experience with particular technologies." If they thought I was such a superstar, then they should have realized that I am capable of being productive in PHP within weeks, not a year! It seems like just an excuse to underpay me. Notwithstanding the fact that I was insulted by this offer, I think that I would be taking on much more risk than they would be; they won't guarantee what my post-PHP salary would be. What does the Stack Exchange community think about this offer? Would you take it?

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Are these company terms good for a programmer or should I move?

- by o_O

Here are some of the terms and conditions set forward by my employer. Does these make sense for a job like programming? No freelancing in any way even in your free time outside company work hours (may be okay. May be they wanted their employees to be fully concentrating on their full time job. Also they don't want their employees to do similar work for a competing client. Completely rational in that sense). - So sort of agreed. Any thing you develop like ideas, design, code etc while I'm employed there, makes them the owner of that. Seriously? Don't you think that its bad (for me)? If I'm to develop something in my free time (by cutting down sleep and hard working), outside the company time and resource, is that claim rational? I heard that Steve Wozniak had such a contract while he was working at HP. But that sort of hardware design and also those companies pay well, when compared to the peanuts I get. No other kind of works allowed. Means no open source stuffs. Fully dedicated to being a puppet for the employer, though the working environment is sort of okay. According to my assessment this place would score a 10/12 in Joel's test. So are these terms okay especially considering the fact that I'm underpaid with peanuts?

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November New Member Offers

- by Cassandra Clark - OTN

Happy November! OTN has worked with its partners to bring you more new offers or extend their existing ones.Oracle Press New Offer-Oracle Technology Network members get 40% off the newest Oracle Press titles by Oracle ACE Mark Rittman, Oracle Business Intelligence 11g Developers Guide and Oracle Exalytics Revealed (ebook format only).Extended Offers - Oracle Store - Save 10% on Your Next Software Purchase from the Oracle StorePearson Publistiong - 35% off Hacker’s Delight Manning Publishing - 41% off the MEAP, eBook and print format of the following books: Making Java Groovy OCA Java SE 7 Programmer I Certification Guide Safari Books Online - OTN members get 30 days of free access + 20% off unlimited access to Safari Books Online for 6 months. Packt Publishing - 25% off the print books and 35% off the eBooks listed below: Getting Started with Oracle Data Integrator 11g: A Hands-On Tutorial Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g: A Hands-On Tutorial Oracle Certified Associate, Java SE 7 Programmer Study Guides. Murach Publishing - Get 30% off for OTN members - Murach’s SQL Server 2012 for Developers by Bryan Syverson and Joel Murach. Get all of this From the OTN Member Discount Page!

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Weekend Project: Build a Fireball Launcher

- by Jason Fitzpatrick

What’s more fun than playing with fire? Shooting it from your hands. Put on your robe and wizard hat, make a stop at the hardware store, and spend the weekend trying to convince your friends you’ve acquired supernatural powers. Over at MAKE Magazine, Joel Johnson explains the impetus for his project: A stalwart of close-quarter magicians for years, the electronic flash gun is a simple device: a battery-powered, hand-held ignitor that uses a “glo-plug” to light a bit of flash paper and cotton, shooting a fireball a few feet into the air. You can buy one from most magic shops for around $50, but if you build one on your own, you’ll not only save a few bucks, you’ll also learn how easy it is to add fire effects to almost any electronics project. (And what gadget couldn’t stand a little more spurting flame?) The parts list is minimal but the end effect is pretty fantastic. Hit up the link below for the full build guide, plenty of warnings, and a weekend project that’s sure to impress. How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 3 How to Sync Your Media Across Your Entire House with XBMC How to Own Your Own Website (Even If You Can’t Build One) Pt 2

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What do you consider standard job perks? [closed]

- by reseter

What does a company need to offer you (apart from a fat pay cheque) for you to work for them? I am aware of this question, which is from an employer's perspective. I am interested in your views as employees. To get the discussion started, here is a list off the top of my head (not in any particular order): High-end computer with a huge screen or two. The best software tool money can buy as per Joel's test). That isn't too much to ask given many of the best tools are free (think git). Flexibility is a bonus- if a particular platform/ piece of software is not absolutely required, I would like to pick my OS and IDE. A quality chair Quiet workspace. Open plan is fine as long as there are meeting rooms so that there is no constant chatter going on around me. Spacious workspace. I would rather have more than three inches between my mouse and the person next to me's keyboard. Food and drink at work. Many companies these days have fruit baskets, biscuits, etc available to their employees, some even offer free lunch. Education. If my employer wants my skills to stay up-to-date, they should at the very least understand I need time to learn. If they want to pay for my books and conference registration fees, I am more than happy to accept. Other options include organizing internal knowledge exchange days or inviting speakers from outside. Flexible hours/ option to work from home is a bonus

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Best Non-Microsoft/.NET Development Blogs and Podcasts

- by Mark Lubin

I really don't want to rile anyone's feathers and I really enjoy blogs like Joel, Coding Horror, Scott Hanselman, etc. However, what are some good blogs/podcasts that focus on other platforms besides Microsoft based ones or maybe even no particular platform at? In particular I am interested in areas like Python, Ruby, Java, C, but any area besides Microsoft fits the bill. There may be other similar questions to this but I think this one is unique since we might get some answers we wouldn't see otherwise, that is, everyone knows Coding Horror is great. Please try to refrain from religious debates; the content of the blog is more important than the platform they are talking about, I just want to get an idea of what is out there and worth the time.

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Should I learn C?

- by Justin Standard

Original Question: Should I Learn C? In the theme of the stackoverflow podcast, here's a fun question: should I learn C? I expect Jeff & Joel will have something to say on this. Some info on my background: Primarily a Java programmer on "enterprisy" systems. Favorite languages: python, scheme 7 years programming experience A very small amount of C++ experience, practically no C experience No immediate "need" to learn C So should I learn C? If so, why? If not, why? C or Assembly? Lots of folks recomending Assembler, so add on question: Is it better to learn C or Assembler? If Assembler, which one? Recommended assemblers so far: Motorolla 68000 Intel Assembler (does he mean x86?) MASM32

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REST api design to retrieve summary information

- by Jacques René Mesrine

I have a scenario in which I have REST API which manages a Resource which we will call Group. A Group is similar in concept to a discussion forum in Google Groups. Now I have two GET access method which I believe needs separate representations. The 1st GET access method retrieves the minimal amount of information about a Group. Given a *group_id* it should return a minimal amount of information like { group_id: "5t7yu8i9io0op", group_name: "Android Developers", is_moderated: true, number_of_users: 34, new_messages: 5, icon: "http://boo.com/pic.png" } The 2nd GET access method retrives summary information which are more statistical in nature like: { group_id: "5t7yu8i9io0op", top_ranking_users: { [ { user: "george", posts: 789, rank: 1 }, { user: "joel", posts: 560, rank: 2 } ...] }, popular_topics: { [ ... ] } } I want to separate these data access methods and I'm currently planning on this design: GET /group/:group_id/ GET /group/:group_id/stat Only the latter will return the statistical information about the group. What do you think about this ?

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Is there a fully-functional dropdown replacement for HTML SELECT that works in IE?

- by Ken Paul

We determined in a previous question that many features of HTML SELECTs are not supported in IE. Is there an alternative widget that you would recommend from your experience that meets the following requirements? Respects the contentEditable property (does not allow selection changes if true) Respects the disabled property of individual OPTIONs (shows them "grayed out" or with strike-through font, and makes them un-selectable) Supports Option Groups (OPTGROUP elements) Supports style options such as border and margin in the SELECT and all sub-elements Supports dynamic add and delete of OPTION and OPTGROUP elements Supports the above in IE version 6 and above EDIT: As noted by @Joel Coehoorn, items 3 and 5 above are currently supported in IE. They are included here to make sure they are not overlooked in a replacement widget.

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Technique for ensuring HTML- and URL-encoding

- by JW

Has anyone implemented a good template system for ensuring that output is properly HTML-encoded where it makes sense? Maybe even something that recognizes when output should be URL-encoded or JSON-encoded instead? The lazy approach — just encoding all inputs — causes problems when you want to send those inputs to a database, or to a block of JavaScript code. So something a little smarter is needed. The tedious approach — putting the proper encoding function around each piece of data on the template — works, but it's easy for developers to forget to do it. Is there a good approach that makes it easy for developers, and ensures that the right encoding is done? I was listening to one of the SO podcasts, and Joel tossed out an idea about using typed data to enforce a difference between HTML-encoded strings and non-encoded strings. Maybe that could be a starting point. I'm looking more for a strategy than for an implementation in a particular language (although I'd be happy to hear about implementations that already exist and work).

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What are the best programming and development related Blogs?

- by Christopher Cashell

There are lots of great resources available on the Internet for learning more about programming and improving your skills. Blogs are one of the best, IMO. There's a wealth of knowledge and experience, much of it covering topics not often found in traditional books, and the increased community aspect helps to bring in multiple viewpoints and ideas. We're probably all familiar with Coding Horror and Joel on Software (so no need to mention them), but what are the other great ones out there? What are the Blogs that you find yourself following most closely? Where you see the best new ideas, the most interesting or informative ideas, or just the posts that make you sit back and think? One Blog per answer, and then we'll vote up the best so we can all learn from them.

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Good Economics book for developers

- by Rocket Surgeon

Joel mentions in several of his blog posts that it is very important for a developer/software entrepreneur to have solid understanding of Economics. Yet the Fog Creek MBA book reading list does not include any Economics books. Is there any good material that people can recommend? Obviously, I am not as concerned about mathematical treatise as foundations and basic principles. For example, I was able to find a very good high-level read on Macroeconomics: Concise Guide to Macroeconomics but I am yet to find anything similar on Microeconomics. Any suggestions and reading pointers would be highly appreciated.

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Best practices book for CRUD apps

- by Kevin L.

We will soon be designing a new tool to calculate commissions across multiple business units. This new compensation scheme is pretty clever and well thought-out, but the complexity that the implementation will involve will make the Hubble look like a toaster. A significant portion of the programming industry involves CRUD apps; updating insurance data, calculating commissions (Joel included) ...even storing questions and answers for a programmer Q&A site. We as programmers have Code Complete for the low-level formatting/style and Design Patterns for high-level architecture (to name just a few). Where’s the comparable book that teaches best practices for CRUD?

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Event based scheduling in excel

- by andreas

Hey fellas! Where i am working we have a number of contractor programmers. We handle the requirements and the project management of our products. I have been trying using various project timing and estimations techniques but cant get the hang of it yet. I have read Joel's evidence based scheduling and i was wondering if there's anything out there that can help me apply that theory? not looking for complex software but perhaps something in excel? Any help will be appreciated Andreas

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Event based PROJECT MANAGEMENT

- by andreas

Hey fellas! Where i am working we have a number of contractor programmers. We handle the requirements and the project management of our products. I have been trying using various project timing and estimations techniques but cant get the hang of it yet. I have read Joel's evidence based scheduling and i was wondering if there's anything out there that can help me apply that theory? not looking for complex software but perhaps something in excel? Any help will be appreciated Andreas

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Moving a C# Program to a different language

- by waiwai933

I am currently in charge of the development of the second version of program that was created in Microsoft .NET C#. I'm not doing any actual programming, but I am writing the specification for the programmer. I'd like to take it off the .NET codebase, but since Joel said on his blog never to rewrite code, and he does provide good reasoning, I'm inclined to think carefully. So my question is, (1) Are there any easy ways to transition? (Languages like .NET C#) (2) Would you take it off .NET? (3) If so, what language would you use? The reason I want to take it off of .NET is as far as my understanding of .NET, it has to be installed on the client. I'd prefer not to inconvenience my customers when there's a better way.

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How many repositories should I use to maintain my scripts under version control?

- by romandas

I mainly code small programs for myself, but recently, I've been starting to code for my peers on my team. To that end, I've started using a Mercurial repository to maintain my code in some form of version control (specifically, Tortoise-Hg on Windows). I have many small scripts, each in their own directory, all under one repository. However, while reading Joel's Hg Tutorial, I tried cloning a directory for one of my bigger scripts to create a "stable" version and found I couldn't do it because the directory wasn't itself a repository. So, I assume (and please correct me if I'm mistaken) that in order to use cloning properly, I'd have to create a repository for each script/directory. But.. would that be a "good idea" or a future maintenance nightmare waiting to happen? Succinctly, do I keep all my (unrelated) scripts in one repository, or should I create a repository for each? Or some unknown third option?

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Why does the ASP.Net Web Forms model "suck"?

- by Daniel Magliola

I've heard Jeff Atwood, Joel Spolsky, and many other legendary people talk about how the ASP.Net Web Forms model sucks. (So this question is kind of directed to them, hopefully Jeff is reading) Now, I highly respect their opinion, given their background and expertise, but truth be told, I absolutely LOVE ASP.Net. I think the model is brilliant, and it sucks if you have no idea what you're doing, but once you understand how to control ViewState, when to use handlers instead of pages, etc, it is generations ahead of all the other models. So every time I hear someone complain about how it sucks, I can't help ask the same question... Why? What is it that's so bad about it? I appreciate all opinions. I'm assuming there's probably a post at Jeff's blog talking about this too...

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