I've always felt that my graphic design skills have lacked, but I do have a desire to improve them. Even though I'm not the worlds worst artist, it's discouraging to see the results from a professional designer, who can do an amazing mockup from a simple spec in just a few hours. I always wonder how they came up with their design and m...
I see programming as the meeting-place of creative arts and science. Most of us ... are interested in programming for the fulfillment achieved by creativeness tempered by the rigor of applied science; produce extremely high quality products that we distribute for free (FOSS, as an example); subject ourselves to peer-reviews that few e...
In most of the commercial jobs I've had to date, my role has mostly been confined to "writing the code", whereas the reason I wanted to get into development in the first place was because I enjoyed usability and design aspect of software. I feel a bit dissalusioned now, because now, pretty much all my working day is spend "plugging thin...
I have finished developing a quite useful small application. I would like to launch it, but I am not satisfied with it's name. What techniques, websites do you recommend that can help a programmer construct a powerful, easy-to-remember application name? For example: Firefox is a very powerful name IMO, easy to remember, very visual. ...
Sometimes, you stumble with programming. Sometimes, it's a lack of creativity, sometimes, you need a new solution. But there are a lot of situations, you stick in, every time they occur. For myself, it's when I have to create the interface between model and viewer. I designed my data structure very well and drew a GUI prototype, but th...
I am a somewhat green developer; some work experience, last year of school. As most of you, I am constantly working on an assortment of personal projects. Since my mind often has a somewhat drifting characteristic; I am not always able to keep the projects in check. After some time they all exhibit the moral fiber of Vikings, harlots and...
I'm starting a new project and having a terrible time coming up with a name for it. While researching something, I came across this blog post, which suggested using a random word generator. I thought that was a great idea, so I gave it a try and got 'something' right off the bat. I hit the generate button a few more times with more spect...
As a developer, have you found that some kinds of companies or industries tend to give you more interesting projects, and more room for creative expression, as opposed to others? I guess it depends on the kind of development. Some development tasks involve very little creativity, and seem to be more focussed on configuration, change req...
Satisficing (a portmanteau of "satisfy" and "suffice") is a decision-making strategy which attempts to meet criteria for adequacy, rather than to identify an optimal solution. A satisficing strategy may often be (near) optimal if the costs of the decision-making process itself, such as the cost of obtaining complete information, are c...
I'm searching for creative -- or at least non-standard -- uses for Version Control. I have a specific purpose in mind, but I don't want to stifle your creative thoughts with any sort of limitations. To that end, don't eliminate a creative use of VCS dealing with source code just because I said creative/non-standard: That doesn't mean it...
Many years ago while working on a tight graphics I/O problem, Tom Duff unrolled a loop and created his Duff's Device as follows: dsend(to, from, count) char *to, *from; int count; { int n = (count + 7) / 8; switch (count % 8) { case 0: do { *to = *from++; case 7: *to = *from++; case 6: *to = *from++; ca...
Hitting the wall is an inevitable part of all creative processes, and programming is no exception. I've found that playing with Lego can give me a break from code, without a break from being creative or constructive. I'm curious to know what other people find useful. (I know this is subjective, but I'm genuinely curious, please don't ...
I like programming, but I'm starting to get bored. To bring back the fun, I would like to create small and fun web applications. So, please give some ideas of web applications/gadgets that can be created in a short time(10-20 hours). Utility is not very important, being challenging or fun is all it matters. Thanks. ...
I seem to use bland words such as node, property, children (etc) too often, and I fear that someone else would have difficulty understanding my code simply because the parts' names are vague, common words. How do you find creative names for classes and components to make them more memorable? I am particularly having trouble with generi...
When using asp:login, asp:forgotpassword and asp:createuserwizard controls within an ascx. (e.g registration.ascx) it can't find e.g UserName, even tho it exists within LayoutTemplate. Any idea how to fix this? ...
How can I encourage colleagues to embrace small-scale innovation within our team(s), in order to get things done quicker and to encourage skills development? (the term 'profoundly found elsewhere' comes from Wikipedia, although it is scarcely used anywhere else apart from a reference to Proctor & Gamble) I've worked in both environment...
Canvas from html5 was introduced some time ago. Currently it's used (almost) only for demonstrations how cool it is - it's mainly related to painting, games and charts. Many of them can be found at Canvas demos. How creatively / unusually can canvas be used? Some examples: jsAscii - ASCII art from images with Javascript and Canvas (...
What's the coolest thing you've used Bytecode injection/insertion (BCI) for? * Dumb logging doesn't count (unless you've managed to made it unique in some creative way). ** Not only in Java. ...
We are receiving some graphic design interns today and I may be given the task to test their web-designing skills. Because not all graphic designers are web designers, I would want to keep the tasks simple and easy to understand. What tasks or questions you would suggest for such a scenario? I do not want to test their HTML or CSS skill...
forget the weird cases/companies, but in general, who, in your view, is the person who should be able to put his/her foot down and say "THIS is the layout. THIS is where the marketing message comes, THIS is where the price comes, THIS is where the testimonial comes"?? - the boss man, the template designer, users (split testing or somethi...