Is Programming always interesting?
Now that I am about to start a career as a programmer, I wonder if programming is always as interesting as it is initially to a programmer. After years of programming, does this job still remain interesting? ...
work-environment
How do you push back against unreasonable demands without offending your superiors?
Like many nerds I'm not good at asserting myself. When business people demand a feature in an unreasonable amount of time, I work around the clock to try to deliver that feature. The problem is, this impacts my health, both physical and mental. What tips have you learned for pushing back against unreasonable demands without offending?...
Team Development Vs Individual Development
Last week I found myself trying to explain to my management that team development is better than individuals programming alone. Unfortunately, I didn't have any hard facts to back this claim up.The managements issue is that 2 developers on a project equals 2 times the cost. What advantages have you found in working as a team? Articles,b...
White noise sources for concentration while programming
All - For the next few months, I'll be in an environment where my teammates will be an arms length from me. In this environment, when I need to concentrate, I need to put on headphones. But I don't really concentrate well with music, particularly anything with rhythm. Listening to the stackoverflow podcast this week made me think ...
How To Deal With An Irritating Colleague
Over the past few months, the behaviour of the guy who sits opposite me has really started to piss me off, and I am thinking of getting a new job as a result. What survival strategies can I adopt so that I can stay productive and motivated, and just survive having to work near this guy. The individual in question rolls in about 9:50 eac...
How can I improve my C coding process on OS X?
Hi, I'm currently learning C from some Harvard screencasts. They're great. I'm currently, because I'm used to it, using this process for running my code: Type it it TextMate Save it gcc filname run "./a.out" goto 1 Is there a major process, program, or best practice I'm missing here? I've tried apple-R in TextMate, but to compile so...
What to do when co-workers code badly?
I am working part time in a small software company to raise some money. Without sounding arrogant: some of my co-workers I am working with in a team are writing horrible code. Both syntax- and algorithmic wise. Sure there are moments in the shadow of a deadline where things get a bit hacky but they do it all the time. Every time I have t...
How can I make my programming environemnt more ergonomic with a cheap way?
For some time I am suffering some backaches and chest-aches after working at home in front of my lap-top. After 2 hours it starts suffering to squeeze on my computer. In the office there is no problem at all (we have big screens and desktops for sure). I do not know where to start to make it more ergonomic but a friend of mine offered m...
What are you doing during your downtimes to still be productive?
Lately I found myself having a lot of downtime at work. Unfortunately my current company doesn't have a "research project" policy so I can't put too much effort on a side project (or I may never finish it). So what I did so far is: Learning a new Framework Browsing Stack Overflow What are your solutions to manage not to procastinat...
How to set a fixed width of editor window in Eclipse?
Hi Recently I have got a new 22" monitor. Finally it's possible to keep all needed windows in Eclipse open while having the main editor window wide enough to display all 120 columns. Problem now is when I wide up or narrow down windows on the left or right side of the editor. Editor's width narrows down or wides up. I'd like to set its ...
What's the best environment to develop in?
What is your idea of the optimal development environment? eg. I like to listen to music while developing, it blocks out distracting conversions and noise and allows me to get into The Zone.. ...
Software Architect responsibilities
I saw some previous posts here abour Software Architect role so decided to ask this question. About 8 months ago I ended up as a senior .NET developer position on a brand new ASP.NET project building web application from ground-up for a large federal client(US govt). Everything here seems normal except for one thing that I found extreme...
Programming, publishing results, and getting help of your boss
Hi, let's say that you are working in a public scientific and computer programming research center as research associate and that you are not independent and have kind of a boss. Let's say that you create a new computer programming research line that has nothing to do with what your boss previously did or investigated. Let's say that yo...
Should developers be forced to check-in before leaving work each day, even if the code does not compile?
During a previous consulting position, the developers where told to check-in code on a nightly basis, regardless if it complied or was complete. Managers were afraid of losing any code and said now we only lose one day at most. The place I'm currently it is investigating whether to implement this. Anyone have any pros/cons on this? Sho...
Being stuck in between two jobs, what to do? Should i just dump my former job?
Once i was working for a small company (15-20 people and me) that went nearly bankrupt last year because of the financial crisis. Now there's just me and the owner of the company. I do a lot of programming for him. I also moved on to another company. And i am somehow feeling responsible for him, because when i would say i quit his compan...
How do you share your git repository with other developers?
I have a central git repository that everyone pushes to for testing and integration, but it only is pushed to when features are 'ready'. While in the middle of a big task, developers frequently have many commits that stay on their harddrives. Sometimes in the middle of these projects I'd like to either see what another developer is doi...
How can I get a list of all the defined variables in Matlab or Octave?
I'm used to working in Matlab using its full GUI environment. Due to license issues I went and installed Octave, but it appears that it doesn't have a GUI, at least not one that's installed by default. I transferred the variables from Matlab to Octave by saveing them in Matlab and loading them in Octave. Thing is, I don't remember the...
Should Development / Testing / QA / Staging environments be similar?
Hi all, After much time and effort, we're finally using maven to manage our application lifecycle for development. We still unfortunately use ANT to build an EAR before deploying to Test / QA / Staging. My question is, while we made that leap forward, developers are still free to do as they please for testing their code. One issue th...
How to suggest changes as a recently-hired employee ?
Hi, I was recently hired in a big company (thousands of people, to give an idea of the size). They said they hired me because of my rigor and because I was, despite my youngness (i'm 25), experienced as a C/C++ programer. Now that I'm in, I can see that the whole system is old and often uses obsolete technologies. There is no naming co...
Quickest way to run a linux dev-environment inside windows
Hi everyone, I get more and more trouble from running WAMP on my XP computer to solve my local development needs. It feels like as more and more things just go wrong or could not be installed at all to a Windows version of PHP. I have been looking for an alternative and found AndLinux plus this link. Would it be a good idea to get an...