As software developers we create lots of... well... code. Much of the code we produce can go towards a new feature or an enhancement to an existing feature. When this is the case, how do we know when this feature is done? What does done mean in the context of a feature? For example, to Company A this may mean many different things like...
What's a good Wiki (or other browser based collaborative tool) for technical documentation? Both as a programmers reference and more general "How to perform this reoccurring tasks on a computer" documents. I'm looking for Wikis with features specifically geared towards documenting system, framework and application development. I'm not g...
If you think it shouldn't, explain why. If yes, how deep should the guidelines be in your opinion? For example, indentation of code should be included? ...
I'm a contract programmer with lots of experience. I'm used to being hired by a client to go in and do a software project of one form or another on my own, usually from nothing. That means a clean slate, almost every time. I can bring in libraries I've developed to get a quick start, but they're always optional. (and depend on getting...
After reading E-myth Revisited, I realize that I can do a better job at making my company less reliant upon me... I spend a tremendous amount of time answering silly questions (silly to me, but necessary for my developers to get the job done). I need to write a set of operating manuals for what to do in certain situations... For insta...
A workmate of mine really loves designing for each and every use-case, no matter how unlikely its occurrence will be or if it's even in the scope of the project. As a result, some of us are having some kind of trouble weeding out unused interfaces and finding out what data field of an interface is actually used. Do You know similar cas...
Ok fine, programmers aren't very social. There are a couple people on my team that rarely say a word to anyone else. They won't go to lunch with the rest of the team when we go out, regardless of who pays or where we go. My boss has offered to buy everyone drinks, and one of them went to that, but the other one wasn't interested. Wha...
Very often, my coworkers engage in silly discussions about general topics not related to the work making a lot of noise in the team's room. This distracts all the developers in the room, making them lose focus and productivity. I know that socializing and exchanging general information in the work is healthy.... But I think too much of ...
Members of my team often dislike the music taste of others. All they can agree on for a while is radio, but all are kinda dissatisfied by that. And there are members who can't concentrate at all when there's music. Headphones for everyone? Any other idea? (no, not put them in different rooms, b/c they're supposed to be a team!) ...
Joining an existing team with a possibly-large codebase already in place can be daunting. What's the best approach; Broad; try to get a general overview of how everything links together, from the code Narrow; focus on small sections of code at a time, understanding how they work fully Pick a feature to develop and learn as you go along...
When creating a new build in Team Foundation Server, I get the following error when attempting to run the new build: The path C:\Build\ProductReleases\FullBuildv5.4.2x\Sources is already mapped to workspace BuildServer_23. I am unable to see a workspace by that name in the workspaces dialog. ...
I have a pretty good team. We are all friends and get along well. When a problem does occur it is usually patched up rather quickly. However, one of the senior members of the team has become a little reluctant to suggestions for improvement. And in an angered moment lashed out with "It always has to be YOUR way!" I will be the first to ...
In the 60s and 70s, Harlan Mills of IBM promoted the idea of Lead Programmer teams, which he compared to a surgical team -- a highly trained and talented individual as the person who was actually "hands on the patient" and who was, in turn, supported by others who provided him or her with tools and routine procedures. He contrasted this ...
I don't know if this has been discussed. Let's say you are in a three developer team. How would you share: models - views - controllers by controllers by use cases something else? Maybe someone says this has nothing to do with asp.net mvc but I think it affects somehow. ...
You have 5-10 person slots for developing web application with lots of backend stuff. How would you assign developers, UI design, test etc. to the team? Which roles would you recommend? (Team gets business requirements and produces tested and deployable code, no support or work on production systems is required) ...
When doing an in-house IT project, such as in a bank, it's very common to have a team with significant differences in both skill and talent among its members. As the biggest factor in project success is usually the people, this is a major project risk, and needs to be managed appropriately. What useful strategies have you found for deal...
Dogfooding is using your own software while it is being developed. Sometimes it is impossible to simple use it at all (e.g. software for fighter pilots.) More often it is possible to dogfood, but it doesn't happen anyway. A couple of "Our users won't experience that problem so it can't be a dogfooding bug," and quickly the practical...
At what point in a team's growth must process change drastically? A lone coder can get away with source control and a brain. A team trying to ship large prepackaged software to local and international markets must have a bit more in place. If you've experienced a large transition in 'process': Was the team's process successfully chan...
Much related to this question, we have a scenario on my team where we need to copy the contents of a folder for a suite of libraries and configuration files for said libraries to our folder where our test code is running from, as part of the test's deployment step. Due to the installation size, and other factors, checking in this instal...
I am trying my hardest to define a list of CodeAnalysisRules that should be omitted from the Code Analysis tools when MSBuild executes my TFSBuild.proj file. But each time I test it, my list of Code Analysis Rules to exclude are ignored and Team Build just simply honors the Code Analysis Rules settings for each project. Anyone have an ...