self-improvement

What steps should software developers take to shield themselves from the failing U.S. economy?

Do we need to fear the $700 Billion government bailout? Will defense contractors eventually take a hit? What software specialties should we be able to depend on to ride out the market? What are your thoughts? ...

Programming with ADD/ADHD

I have diagnosed ADD. Mild but enough to affect my work: Easily distracted Can't concentrate on one project at a time Addicted to the web Procrastination etc. What strategies do you use to compensate? One clarification I have real ADD. I was diagnosed with it when I was a child and have wrestled with it all my life. I am not ...

Ways to prepare your mind before coding?

Coding is a very attention consuming exercise, how do you prepare yourself to begin a good coding session? I use to be more calm and ready to think in a useful way after reading some insightful new posts from my rss reader. ...

Do I have a shot at learning Objective-C?

I do mostly ActionScript development, plus a bit of C# (and historically Lingo, Java and VB). What are my chances of learning Objective-C? I'd love to have a go at iPhone development, but the language just looks so insanely different to everything else. ...

How to revive C++ skills.

I was a C++ developer (mostly ATL/COM stuff) until, as many of us, I switched to C# in 2001. I didn't do much C++ programming since then. Do you have any tips on how to revive my C++ skills? What has changed in C++ in the last years? Are there good books, articles or blogs covering the language. The problem is that most material I could...

Learn C from Open Source code

I've tried a couple of times to teach myself to program in C using books, but haven't had the patience to progress through all the mundane examples. I have experience of programming in Java, and I'm a good PHP developer, so I find Hello World and generic programs-to-read-from-STDIN aren't really very informative. I imagine that a better...

Any good coding documentaries?

Hi Has anyone seen or can recommend any good documentaries about programming, software engineering, the industry in general? Thanks ...

Hardest concept to grasp as a beginner

When you were starting to program, what was the hardest concept for you to grasp? Was it recursion, pointers, linked lists, assignments, memory management? I was wondering what gave you headaches and how you overcame this issue and learned to love the bomb, I mean understand it. EDIT: As a followup, what helped you grok your hard-t...

Improving as a coder with respect to design.

As a soon-to-be computer science graduate, I have to come realization that I have a long way to go when it comes to the overall design of an application. After spending many semesters of programming from the hip I have come to appreciate the mulling over the needs of an application before diving head first into the coding portion. My qu...

Is it worth joining the ACM

I keep getting mail form the Association for Computing Machinery urging me to join up and get access to all these wonderful resources. At something like $84 (USD) a year and with the dollar/pound exchange rate it isn't a lot of money, but is it worth it? Any opinions? ...

What are some best practices for OpenGL coding (esp. w.r.t. object orientation)?

This semester, I took a course in computer graphics at my University. At the moment, we're starting to get into some of the more advanced stuff like heightmaps, averaging normals, tesselation etc. I come from an object-oriented background, so I'm trying to put everything we do into reusable classes. I've had good success creating a came...

Language Books for Aspiring Experts

I'm a big fan of Bill Wagner's Effective C#. (I believe he's got a sequel out, too) What I love about this book are: It's short. It's not for beginners, so it doesn't waste time covering the basics (again). It has good, pithy advice for programmers who want to raise their game in C#. It's practical, not philosphical. Can ...

What is the single hardest programming skill or concept you have learned?

As a follow up to "What is the one programming skill you have always wanted to master but haven’t had time?", what is the single hardest thing related to programming skill, concept, tool, language, etc. that you have learned or mastered? Not necessarily as a beginner, but all throughout your career. ...

Developing during the weekend?

Do you allocate some hours during the weekend to code? If so, are you developing for self-improving, personal side projects, for the community (i.e. Open Source projects) or just because you can't stop doing it? ...

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?" ...

How to improve java knowledge?

I'm in college. Basically I have already learnt the syntax of java from books and have been programming in java for two years (Not every other day of course, because it's a computer science and not software engineering course). However, I find myself lacking sufficient knowledge of java and feel inadequate. For example, none of the book...

What language to learn now?

Hi! I have been programming on my free time for a couple of years now and im fluent in PHP, know some Python and programmed in Visual Basic .NET (this was the first language i learn't). But now i want to get cracking with something else, something cross-platform and not on the internet as i find the idea of another layer of applicatio...

What is the best way to learn more about imperative-style concurrent programming?

Have had to write my first "proper" multithreaded coded recently, and realised just how little I knew about how "imperative-style" (ie, concurrency models used by C++/C#/Java, and the like) concurrent programming techniques. What resources are there (both books and online tutorials, etc) in order to learn more about this area of coding-...

Becoming a ninja developer

My approach with designing a solution is to find the simplest way to achieve the result required. This usually means that I provide what is required and within the time frames requested. And fairly bug free. This is all good, and I have built a good reputation as a result. The downside is this. I think I have limited my ability to tackl...

Why you/I should not learn another language?

I'm sat here tonight bashing out some Project Euler with Python for virtually the first time and as a .Net developer, I am a little out of my comfort zone. (Maths is not my strong point and I am diving into python). Part of me wants to fire up Visual Studio and get the problem's solved but there is another side of me that wants to do th...