Of course, most of the time this type of request comes from management that neither has a clue about what the users really want, nor does [s]he have a clue about the technical aspects of building a specific software project or software in general. See Dilbert's Pointy-Haired Boss for more detail. However, that's just one aspect. What ab...
I'm looking for a consensus for one or the other Beta; Release software that is semi- functional to a limited audience and let users guide the process until an application is complete. No Beta; Define all functionality based on previous user-feedback and/or business logic, build the software, and test it with whatever time you give yo...
The effectiveness of a "modularization" is dependent upon the criteria used in dividing the system into modules. What I want is, suggest some criteria which can be used in decomposing a system into modules. ...
I remember reading some time ago that there were cpu cards for systems to add additional processing power to do mass parallelization. Anyone have any experience on this and any resources to get looking into the hardware and software aspects of the project? Is this technology inferior to a traditional cluster? Is it more power consciou...
Myself and a friend have created a startup, but we are both software developers. We are quickly realizing that we are going to have to deal with, and understand, all of the intricacies of business. Are there any resources that can help us avoid common problems encountered by the non-business-savvy? How do you balance creating your pro...
What is the biggest software development team that uses Python? I am wondering how well the dynamic type system scales to large development teams. It's pretty clear that at Google they have C++ and Java codebases with thousands of developers; their use of Python is much smaller. Are there some huge companies that develop primarily in P...
Well this question is asked by Scott at Scott Hanselman's blog, but I want to introduce over here. What were the Three Things You Learned About Software WHILE NOT in University? ...
What typically takes place during the due diligence phase of an acquisition of a software company? I am in particular interested in how the value of the software assets is determined. What is the scope and nature of the technical documents that is reviewed? Is it common to examine the actual source code? the version control history ...
A 2 part question: Are flow-charts, as tool to analyze source-code, no longer considered useful? The reason I ask this question is that if you Google for source-code to flowchart tools for Visual Studio, there are no relevant results. Also, Microsoft does not seem to have a tool for this purpose. Are people just not using flowcharts th...
I'm currently a student. I just finished intermediate c#. Wow. It was interesting, but I've found myself becoming more interested in the javascript and html world as I've started to see the potential for variety with web applications and scripting. My question simply is for your best answer on the benefits or negatives of either track ...
I was given this really long flow chart (8 pages) of how we process our financial transactions. The most critical piece of our application. I'm sure you can imagine lots of squares and diamons with lines drawn all over the place, and then separate detail sheets describing which fields in the database to update, calculate, retrieve, store...
I couldnt find it, so here is my question: What blog every Software Developer should follow? Im talking about blogs that are less language-specific, and bring the greatest advices frequently about our job, our working-life, and career. I am pretty sure that there are a lot of good blogs out there waiting for me visit them. In my feeds ...
My company requires that we achieve our estimates to within 30% of forecast. Typically, clients (any my business is no different) expect that they'll get their product as soon as possible for the lowest cost ("I want all the features delivered yesterday for free"). As part of my team's development iterations, we are required to estimate...
Furthering my previous question about what an SA does, I'd like to know how SA's usually manage the developers under them. Is it: a manual process, where they meet with developers to make them understand the design semi automatic, where they draw diagrams that mostly suffice to explain the code to developers fully automatic, where they...
I am wondering what kind of methods are "helper methods". Where do we have to draw te border to say that an specific method is a "helper method"? Actually, I consider any method to be a "helper method" if it's not an initialization method, a method implemented for conforming to an protocol or delegation response methods. Any other method...
What is the optimal size of a software development team? or Does size really matter? It seems to be subjective, but my intention is to know 'What are the metrics' which decides team size?. ...
Recently we’ve seen the emergence of so-called “Shadow IT” within many organisations. If you’re not already familiar with the term, it refers to those who manage to dodge the usual IT governance by means such as using thumb drives to share files or “unapproved” software products to achieve business tasks. Shadow IT can emerge from within...
We are going reward the best developer (monthly/qtrly basics) from our team. How do you select/choose the best possible candidate from team? Do you have some sort of criteria / selection process which you may want to share? ...
I'm currently in the planning stages of starting out on my own* (with a business partner...) and am trying to come up with a list of minimum requirements that I'll need for the early stages of this venture. Leaving out the business craft side of things (sales marketing etc.) at this point - there are plenty of articles here on SO coveri...
Whilst working on some generally horrible Javascript code this morning, I came across the following (in multiple places): // make moveAmount negative moveAmount = moveAmount - (moveAmount * 2); I sit directly across from the guy that wrote this; he's been a developer here for seven years. I, on the other hand have just started, am pre...