Programmers Weekly Newsletter

Top new questions this week:

Is it just me or is this a baffling tech interview question?

Background I was just asked in a tech interview to write an algorithm to traverse an "object" (notice the quotes) where A is equal to B and B is equal to C and A is equal to C. That's it. That is …

interview algorithms  
asked by Matthew Patrick Cashatt 100 votes
answered by Matt 200 votes

Is the creation of brand new software generally a major part of most programming jobs?

I have worked in software development for over 10 years now, and it's dawning on me that I rarely get to create anything "new". I realize that "new" is a vague term, but I would define it as anything …

workflow job-satisfaction  
asked by Jer 48 votes
answered by Scott Wilson 53 votes

How can one best avoid writing bloated GUI code?

I find whenever I work with GUI code, the code tends to bloat faster then other kinds of code. It also seems harder to refactor. Whereas in other kinds of code I can refactor pretty easily -- I find I …

refactoring gui  
asked by Doug T. 25 votes
answered by S.Robins 18 votes

I just started a job with Scrum and something seems to be missing. I am new to Scrum

The code is a complete mess of a combination of classic ASP/ASP.NET. The scrum consist of us patching up the big mess or making additions to it. We are all too busy doing that to start a rewrite so I …

scrum maintenance  
asked by punkouter 21 votes
answered by Erik Reppen 1 vote

How important are UML diagrams for a successful project?

I'm in the middle of a project and I was asked to write UML diagrams (use cases,class diagram,etc). The project isn't very complex. I was wondering if this be a waste of my time? Should I just be …

uml modeling  
asked by Wissem 20 votes
answered by Pierre 303 41 votes

When is it acceptable to NOT fix broken windows?

In reference to broken windows, are there times when refactoring is best left for a future activity? For example, if a project to add some new features to an existing internal system is assigned to a …

project-management refactoring maintenance  
asked by Bullines 14 votes
answered by S.Robins 19 votes

What's the difference between recursion and corecursion?

What's the difference between definitions? recursion corecursion In wiki, there is few information without clear code for good understanding these terms. But, could you give very simple examples, …

algorithms language-agnostic recursion  
asked by user1131997 13 votes
answered by Philip JF 4 votes

Greatest hits from previous weeks:

How do I learn algorithms and data structures?

This is in continuation to my previous question where I asked is it necessary to learn algorithms and data structures. I feel yes it is. Now I work in an environment where I won't ever get the chance …

self-improvement algorithms data-structures  
asked by sushil bharwani 14 votes
answered by Hounshell 21 votes

How to react to wrong/not answered questions during interview?

Today I have held my first interview with potential interns. While this has been mostly open questions, I have had some trivial programming tasks for them: Write a function that returns true if …

interview internship  
asked by Mykolas Simutis 31 votes
answered by Rob Z 35 votes

Can you answer these?

how to structure MVC models and ORM models

I have some trouble getting a good folder structure in my project and i would like to know what other ways i could use to structure my files. I'm currently working in an MVC sturctured folder. www/ …

php mvc directory-structure  
asked by user1175327 2 votes

IntelliJ with Maven compilation

I have a project that needs Hibernate jars. I added them as dependencies in the pom.xml and Maven compiles my project well. However, in the IDE, all annotations and calls to Hibernate API are marked …

java hibernate maven intellij jpa  
asked by Mik378 2 votes

Tools for Operating on Large Amounts of Text Data

I need to handle and process ~5 million news articles, an amount small enough to fit on a commodity desktop but too large to process serially. Thus far, I have been using Python/pickle for …

python big-data  
asked by duckworthd 2 votes
Subscribe to more Stack Exchange newsletters


Unsubscribe from this newsletter or change your email preferences by visiting your subscriptions page on stackexchange.com.

Questions? Comments? Let us know on our feedback site. If you no longer want to receive mail from Stack Exchange, unsubscribe from all stackexchange.com emails.

Stack Exchange, Inc. One Exchange Plaza, 26th Floor, NY NY 10006 <3