I realize that this might be counted as subjective by some, and, as such, downvotes might ensue; I don't mind. I would hope that some might actually provide links to references and detailed analysis. Anyway, on to the question. I have an interview on Friday. I had one two weeks ago that went really well from a personal perspective, but...
I've been wondering if there are certain personality types that are drawn to programming. If you've taken this test, please post your types here and I'll compile the results. Update: There have been a few answers regarding the erroneous nature of the results from a Myers Briggs personality test. Please take this into consideration if ...
A recent article on Arstechnica discusses a recent study performed by Psychology Department of North Carolina State University, that showed users have a tendancy to do what ever it takes to get rid of a dialog box to get back to their task at hand. Most of them would click ok or yes, minimize the dialog, or close the dialog, regardless ...
Working in an environment with both development and support aspects, sometimes it can be very difficult to switch back and forth between tasks - usually on totally different systems. I personally make notes as I'm working on stuff in the mind-mapping tool, Freemind. I find this does minimise the effects of context-switching - I can quit...
... that you've never seen before. But at the moment, you are are focused on task X, and you really don't want to believe what you've just seen, so you let yourself believe that the crash/problem was just some random fluke. And then you forget all about it. Weeks or months later as your app gets wider usage and that fluky thing you s...
Forgive me for asking a rather general question, but how do you psychologically deal with high levels of complexity in software projects? I'm working on a personal compiler project and am currently trying to understand the unmanaged .net metadata API (and before anybody mentions it, Reflection.Emit is not sufficient for my needs!) which...
What would be some efficient (economical) ways to recover from a creative burn out ...
I have been experimenting with programming in different places like parks, coffee houses and even the beach !!! I have almost always found that programming in places such as these stimulates the brain and increases productivity. Seeing people smiling and having a good time in general creates a good pleasant ambience that results in less...
When you suddenly feel "eehhhhhh....not now...just to get it done somehow", what can be the reason? ...
Reading about the G.729 codec, I found this interesting tidbit about "Comfort Noise": A comfort noise generator (CNG) is also set up because in a communication channel, if transmission is stopped, and the link goes quiet because of no speech, then the receiving side may assume that the link has been cut. By inserting comf...
Can anyone point me towards any references that attempt to formulate an economics of software development? In my own research, I discovered a book by Barry Boehm on this, but it seems very awkward and theoretical. Dependency Structure Matrices seem to offer something worthwhile. Carliss Baldwin has used these in some work on modulariz...
I often times ask myself why I prefer one language over another. Whether it was the conditions of my life that shaped my preference subtly over the years, long before I had ever even seen a language. I've asked myself if particular languages, patterns, or technologies can feed certain personality-traits unconsciously and make me a more...
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...
Is common to see developers enjoy technology, to care about intangible things (like stackoverflows badges, videogames records), a lot of them really like music and usually the have a particular humor sense…so what’s the psychological pattern between them ? what is the influence of the context? What makes this vocation so particular? ...
Inspired by this question: Are people with certain Myers Briggs personality types drawn to careers in programming/development? I certainly belong with this group. By the way, anyone knows the English (psycho-)terms for this personality type and its opposite - "wake up early, go to bed early"? Edit: Thanks to DrJokepu, we figured out t...
I've noticed that this color is somehow preferred over pure blue or blue-violet. Vista and Windows 2008 have largely adopted this color. Many dating sites seem to prefer this one over blue or violet. Is it so that this color is associated with ocean water color and provides some kind of relaxation to the site visitors or is it something ...
Hi. I've worked in IT, mostly as developer, besides school and full time for a couple of years now. And no matter whether the team was using an agile approach or just somehow "simply do it", mental stress seems inevitable. Every team member reacts differently to stress, some get sick more often and whatever. How to manage stress, or bet...
As my question implies, I seem to have a problem getting my hands dirty when learning new programming methods and technology. My problem lies in knowing there may be faster, more efficient, less tedious, and overall "better" ways of doing a certain task. Instead of spending the time writing bad code and learning from my own mistakes, I c...
I was inspired by this question, and it's first answer to ask my question. What specific areas of study, if any, focus on human-machine interaction and the study of human behaviour with regard to computers? From my understanding of the issue I am considering study in the following (broad) areas: Design Psychology Are there any par...
First off, my apologies for asking this fairly off-topic question. But in my experience, there are a lot of highly intelligent people on SO so I figured I might give it a shot. Please don't be too triggerhappy with the 'close'-button :-) Besides, I think there's some chance that this may be of general interest. I'm a Computer Science ma...