experience

Is there a minimum age/years of experience to be a "senior"?

I wondered if there is a common sense of a "minimum age" or at least a certain period of time before a developer is thought of as a "senior". Do you think, you can't be a senior developer before an age of 35? Or with less than 10y of professional experience on the market? ...

Increases Skills what should I learn?

My path to a 'fulltime'- developer stated as a analyst using VBA with Excel, Access, and then onto C#. I went to college part time once I discovered I had a passion for coding not business. I do about most of my coding in C#, but being an ASP.NET developer I also write in HTML, JavaScript, SQL etc. . . the usual suspects. I like to k...

Beginning TDD - Challenges? Solutions? Recommendations?

OK, I know there have already been questions about getting started with TDD.. However, I guess I kind of know the general concensus is to just do it , However, I seem to have the following problems getting my head into the game: When working with collections, do will still test for obvious add/remove/inserts successful, even when based...

Is a College/University Degree Still Relevant?

In an age where experience seems to be paramount, does anyone still see great value in having a college (specifically Computer Science) degree? Would those three years be better spent working in a top-shelf software company? ...

Is a masters degree overkill?

After reading the responses to Is a College/University Degree Still Relevant?, I'd then ask, once you complete a university technology degree, would pursuing a masters in the field be worth it? Or is the experience you would gain working for those two years be more valuable? Or is a masters degree something that is more valuable after ...

Object Oriented Database experiences?

I'm doing a research project, part of which is concerend with object oriented databases. I would like to hear from anyone who has experience using such databases, or considered using them but opted to go for a different approach. What did you like? What didn't you like? What made you choose using the approach you ended up using? When ...

What is the strangest programming language you have used?

For me I think it has to be the scripting language of an old proprietary telephony platform I used in the early 2000s. The language itself was not so bad, but the fact that it was meant to be edited with a drag-and-drop GUI, which did not expose all the functionality I needed, was quite frustrating. I also remember having to manually imp...

Have you used any of the C++ interpreters (not compilers)?

I am curious if anyone have used UnderC, Cint, and Ch (or any other C++ interpreter) and could share their experience. Thanks everyone for your valuable input. /Allan ...

Best way to get into an open source project

I really want to up my programming experience and I've heard that one of the best ways to do this is to get into an open source project and try and contribute. But what is the best way of doing that? How do you pick a project? Are there certain unspoken rules or obligations one should know before joining a project? What is the best way t...

Debugging techniques

Debugging is the most time consuming activity of programming. So using appropriate tools and techniques is paramount to efficiency and productivity. What are your favorite debugging techniques, and in which cases do you apply each of them? There are many orthogonal criteria to consider: Programming languages (tools usually are langua...

How important is early exposure to computers for a SW developer?

Hi everybody, looking at the question about "What was your first computer?" I realized that most of us have a very long history of computer usage long before formal training set in (academic or vocational). This reminds me of tennis professionals who often have a history of playing tennis from very early on in their life. So my questi...

How helpful is knowing lambda calculus?

To all the people who know lambda calculus: What benefit has it bought you, regarding programming? Would you recommend that people learn it? ...

Any experience with unusual technologies ?

99 bottles of beers made me realize that ADA, Erlang and Smalltalk were not so odd languages after all. There are plenty of unusual tools and I supposed that a lot of them are even used :-) Have you ever worked with very original technologies ? If yes, let us know in which context, and what did you think about it. Funny snippets strong...

How can a team or can a team develop a CRM system in two months?

We have an offer to develop a CRM, but we have only two months. We have team of 3 or 4 programmers (2 are experienced and 2 are good prorammers). Should we accept the offer? AND Is there any good opensource i.e. free CRM or ERP system? (written in java) with which we won't start from scratch? ...

Experience Needed?

I am third year computer science major. Soon I'll have to start looking for a job. What sorts of things should I been doing before graduating, that will facilitate my job seeking experience? EDIT: I am interested in the field of software designer, mostly C++. ...

Masters vs Work experience

I'm a senior CS student, I have been wondering what is better? Studying a Masters right after school, or get real world experience before studying a Masters? Also, how hard is to find a good job, with either a BS or a Masters in CS? ...

What programming hack from your past are you most ashamed of?

We've all been there (usually when we are young and inexperienced). Fixing it properly is too difficult, too risky or too time-consuming. So you go down the hack path. Which hack from your past are you most ashamed of, and why? I'm talking about the ones where you would be really embarrassed if someone could attribute the hack to you...

Programming Job Applications - Years of Experience?

I'm currently applying for jobs, and they all require "X Years Experience in Y technology". My question is, is there some standard way of measuring X? For example, I have used C# professionally for 4 years, however it represented maybe 1/3rd of the work I was involved in during those years. Do I therefore put "4 years C# experience", ...

How do you stay focused and ship projects?

I find way too many projects to get involved in, way to many languages to play with (and way too many cool features within those languages), and way too many books to read... How do you guys stay focused and actually get anything done, rather than leaving a trail of partially complete "experiments?" ...

Does anyone have experience with ZFS?

I am considering to adopt ZFS and I would be happy to know your experience in both production and testing environment. ...