Tagged Questions
75
votes
17answers
4k views
Are my negative internship experiences representative of the real world? [closed]
I'm curious if my current experiences as an intern are representative of actual industry.
As background, I'm through the better part of two computing majors and a math major at a major university; ...
47
votes
16answers
3k views
Should I take care of race conditions which almost certainly has no chance of occuring?
Let's consider something like a GUI application where main thread is updating the UI almost instantaneously, and some other thread is polling data over the network or something that is guaranteed to ...
26
votes
24answers
4k views
Absolute statements in IT that are wrong [closed]
I was recently in a discussion about the absolute statement "It costs more in programming time to optimise software than it costs to throw hardware at a problem".
The general thought (of which I ...
24
votes
7answers
2k views
How to convince my teammates to follow some basic rules
I have a problem with my teammates. Long story short: We are three students working at a project for a competition. The project consists of 2 separate applications: one for Windows (that I develop) ...
16
votes
7answers
957 views
How to become a good team player?
I've been programming (obsessively) since I was 12. I am fairly knowledgeable across the spectrum of languages out there, from assembly, to C++, to Javascript, to Haskell, Lisp, and Qi. But all of ...
6
votes
3answers
395 views
Are XML Comments Necessary Documentation?
I used to be a fan of requiring XML comments for documentation. I've since changed my mind for two main reasons:
Like good code, methods should be self-explanatory.
In practice, most XML ...
5
votes
4answers
410 views
How to stop gold-plating and just be content to release working developments [closed]
The development team that I'm a member of has recently adapted to work according to Agile practices. This has personally highlighted the fact that I can't stop myself gold-plating code (and ...
5
votes
4answers
718 views
Is it worth developing custom shopping cart? [closed]
We have handsome library of cakephp modules at my workplace, and we develop custom websites at good pace until the shopping cart comes our way to slow down the process. I have used various (Magento, ...
5
votes
5answers
348 views
How to shift development culture from tech fetish to focusing on simplicity and getting things done? [closed]
Looking for ways to switch team/individual culture from chasing latest fads, patterns, and all kinds of best practices to focusing on finding quickest and simplest solutions and shipping features.
My ...
5
votes
4answers
446 views
How to deal with complex codes in (huge) projects
I am preparing a memoir about "Why do (some) IT projects become too complex and how to avoid it ?".
If you have ever encountered projects having complex codes or were hard to maintain, how did you ...
5
votes
4answers
212 views
Should I include dependencies for which I have the source as projects in my solution?
We have various projects in source control for web and desktop applications. Invariably, many of them use third-party open source projects or even common libraries within our organization as ...
5
votes
4answers
529 views
Learning by doing (and programming by trial and error)
How do you learn a new platform/toolkit while producing working code and keeping your codebase clean?
When I know what I can do with the underlying platform and toolkit, I usually do this:
I create ...
5
votes
2answers
140 views
What are approaches for analyzing the cost-benefits of a development methodology?
There are many development practices (TDD, continuous integration, cowboy-coding), principles (SOLID, layers of abstraction, KISS), and processes (RUP, Scrum, XP, Waterfall). I have learned you can't ...
4
votes
2answers
266 views
How to effectively put code live
What are the general strategies to employ when attempting to ensure that a module of code will function correctly on the live system? A common problem we have at our software house is that we ...
3
votes
5answers
264 views
Should Developers Perform All Tasks or Should They Specialize? [closed]
Disclaimer: The intent of this question isn't to discern what is better for the individual developer, but for the system as a whole.
I've worked in environments where small teams managed certain ...
