When making the step from developer to management how far away from the code should you get? The standard advice is 'stop coding' but Rands had an interesting blog post about how its important to keep coding. http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2007/02/07/technicality.html In my experience (working for a big telecomms company) it...
Sure, we all wish for all-knowing, all understanding, no-training-required new employees / co-workers. However, sometimes you just have to make due with green recruits (budget, availability...). How would you train new employees in your language of choice (the one he's going to work in)? What obstacles would you tackle first, what later...
I finished my undergraduate work in computer science about five years ago. I like programming, and I'd like to continue doing it, but I'd also like to start getting into project- or people management. What things should I do at work to make this transition (a) easier and (b) happen faster? It seems to me that it's hard to get upper ma...
A few weeks ago, I was assigned to evaluate all our programmers. I'm very uncomfortable with this since I was the one who taught everyone the shop's programming language (they all got out of college not knowing the language and as luck would have it, I'm very proficient with it.). On the evaluation, I was very biased on their performance...
Hi, we have a lot of users running in different shared and solo-owned repositories in Subversion. As part of our work, we do project-shared code and individual work, and we need to control access, ideally on a group basis. Currenly, we use SVNManager to allow users to manage access and create repositories. However, in order to get tha...
We are a small (20 people) yet growing Internet Agency and we have decided it is time for a operations director. Most of the heavy lifting operationally has been handled by the Tech Director and one project manager (who is moving out of project management into product development) What personality type is best? Should they have a tech...
What software metaphors have worked best for you in discussing and explaining the complexities of software development with non-technical management? ...
There is a school of thought which says that any sort of individual rewarding promotes competition among team members at the expense of the team losing sight of the overall team focus/goal. Toppers crop up.. Putting other people down so that you look better. You don't wanna help someone who might just pass you by with what you taught the...
At some point, I'd like to follow some of the advice on SOFlow and start my own small consulting / software shop. (Consulting because it's easy to get work, software because it scales much better.) I understand the naming behind "Less Everything" - they make minimalist products. But where does "37 Signals" come from? And "Fog Creek"?...
What are some of the day to day things you do in your dev team that help build your team's morale? ...
Can anyone recommend a system or piece of software that will allow me to keep track of the assets in our (small) company. Ideally I'm looking for something that will track laptops, desktops etc, as well as software we may have purchased. Would be a bonus if it also kept track of less tangible things like domains. Free would be nice, b...
Our organization is undertaking a re-org to solve our current resource and communications issues. I know, a re-org never solves anything, etc. With that being said, I was tapped to go from an individual contributor (aka tech lead/architect) to leading a team of maintenance developers and analysts. I'm very aware of all of the stigmas as...
I'd like to read Peopleware, but the library here only has the 1st edition (from 1987), rather than the newer 2nd edition (1999). Can anyone tell me what the differences between the 1st and 2nd editions are? Is it worth trying to get a copy of the 2nd edition, or should I go for immediate gratification and just read the 1st ed? ...
We have some grumpy developers in the office, and like the perrenial bikeshed, everyone wants to have their say. Some languages do try to mandate one style over the other (python), others are just free form. I'm having a hard time getting consensus here, and people are doing spurious edits on the codebase. Is there some sort of techni...
I've recently been tasked with developing a web application that will use a MySQL database on the back end. I for most of my career I have worked with MS-SQL Manager. My greatest weakness is in defining foreign key constraints I usually use MS-SQL Manager's diagramming tool to draw my relationship lines between tables. ...
Can you recommend a particular software for managing digital assets like images, sound files, videos on the web? This is for internal consumption on my development group and managing communication with graphic designers. (It doesn't have to be free) Thanks ...
Recently, a member of our team got burned out and had to leave. Basically, he got into a death march situation on an overdue project, started by working late to catch up which grew into stranger and stranger hours. Eventually, he was leaving when everyone else was arriving and starting work in the evenings. Consequently, he developed s...
The major events such as Microsoft PDC or Google Developer Day or the Business of Software ;) are widely advertised and discussed. But i am sure lot of other interesting events on Leadership skills, Softskills, management training and etc which happens silently right in city that you realize just bit late. How do you manage to keep tr...
You have to sell "agile" to management, they are receptive but have zero knowledge or understanding of modern application development techniques. Which ONE book do you give them as a set text? It must cover a few different methodologies (XP, Scrum etc) and give a flavour of the benefits AND problems. It must be understandable to people ...
Why is it that customers are seemingly always eager to believe that presenting a few mockup online screens means that the application is just a few tweaks away from being shipped? Ok, I realise the answer lies in the fact that they don't understand the work that has to go on behind the screens to actually provide the necessary functiona...