All Questions
62,088
questions
65
votes
12
answers
19k
views
Why isn't functional programming more popular in the industry? Does it catch on now? [closed]
During my four years at university we have been using much functional programming in several functional programming languages. But I have also used much object oriented programming to, and in fact I ...
- 14.8k
70
votes
29
answers
146k
views
Are certifications worth it?
I am finishing my college degree in programming soon and I'm exploring the next steps to take to further my career. One option I've been considering is getting a certification or a series of ...
24
votes
8
answers
2k
views
How do I cope with a manager who’s always interfering in what I do, but doesn’t really understand it?
We've all had them, managers who have either come from sales or last looked at code 10 or more years ago but think they know how to write code.
What can I do to give the impression that I'm grateful ...
- 38.9k
110
votes
166
answers
61k
views
What's your favourite quote about programming? [closed]
What's your favourite quote about programming?
One quote per answer, and please check for duplicates before posting!
9
votes
2
answers
617
views
How much effort should be put in each part of a waterfall project?
Where waterfall commonly includes:
Requirements
Functional design
Technical design
Build
Test
Review
(Deploy)
And iterations across this list. If I forgot a step, let me know.
- 1,001
8
votes
4
answers
708
views
Which (programming) specialities are needed in a good web development team? [closed]
At first glance, I'd say a good programming team needs to understand the following matters:
The details of the core language / framework
HTML, (asynchronous) javascript
SQL / data model
Usability / ...
- 1,001
35
votes
9
answers
8k
views
Do dynamic typed languages deserve all the criticism? [closed]
I have read a few articles on Internet about programming language choice in the enterprise. Recently many dynamic typed languages have been popular, i.e. Ruby, Python, PHP and Erlang. But many ...
- 14.8k
39
votes
24
answers
14k
views
How do you stay focused at work? [closed]
Sometimes, the things I have to do for my job are interesting and engaging. Sometimes, they aren't. Occasionally, they really aren't.
Do you have any particular strategies or tricks for dealing ...
66
votes
12
answers
10k
views
Getting non-programmers to understand the development process
When starting a project for a company that's not primarily a programming company, one of the expectations is that there's a finished product at the end free of all bugs and does everything needed ...
99
votes
34
answers
63k
views
"Comments are a code smell" [closed]
A coworker of mine believes that any use of in-code comments (ie, not javadoc style method or class comments) is a code smell. What do you think?
2
votes
4
answers
156
views
How to restrict viral file sharing
So I have a website I would like to make that would essentially be selling files. For the sake of discussion let's say that these files are like the raw text of a book. If somebody buys a file from my ...
Jeff
24
votes
16
answers
17k
views
Is it ok if I don't know C but I am good with C++? [closed]
I am pretty good with C++, good as in I am comfortable with the language, I have read Accelerated C++ and done almost all the exercises.
However, I have a big problem. Do I need to learn C? I have ...
18
votes
7
answers
2k
views
What optimizations are premature? [duplicate]
I've been here for nearly a month and it seems that people have a tendency to be eager to use the "Premature Optimization is the root of all evil" argument as soon as someone mentions efficiency.
...
Simon
10
votes
5
answers
7k
views
How to specify WIP limits in Kanban?
Consider a typical Kanban board:
Input, Analysis, Dev Ready, Development, Build Ready, Test, Release Ready
How to specify WIP limits for each column? any formula?
- 4,523
9
votes
10
answers
14k
views
Switch from C# to Java, which "gotchas" I should care?
I may have to switch to Java for new project. I have very little knowledge about Java, because I've mainly studied and used C#, and I'm afraid of the differences between these two language/platform ...
4
votes
4
answers
297
views
Super user powers in development environment?
Is it too much to ask for when I ask the IT department to give my development team an environment where we can use whatever software that we can download without having to have security check those ...
- 141
6
votes
3
answers
329
views
Scrum meeting - dealing with the last question
In the 5/15 minute scrum meeting the 3 questions are asked.
For the last question
"what impediments are getting in your way"
If a dev has problems - the xyz is going to have problems, this is likely ...
- 495
16
votes
5
answers
392
views
Is it OK to put a link to Q&A sites in a program's comments?
In quite some codebase you can see comments stating things like:
// Workaround for defect 'xxx', (See bug 1434594 on Sun's bugparade)
So I've got a few questions, but they're all related.
Is it OK ...
- 261
3
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Who is responsible for software licensing in ITIL?
In a standard ICT Department who is responsible for managing software licenses?
I would start by saying that the ICT Manager is accountable for it. But who gets the responsibility, using ITIL as a ...
Mike Mengell
1050
votes
130
answers
416k
views
I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I don't feel like I know how to program
I'm graduating with a Computer Science degree but I see websites like Stack Overflow and search engines like Google and don't know where I'd even begin to write something like that. During one summer ...
11
votes
4
answers
2k
views
I want to explain why the specification must not be changed during development period
I want to explain why the specification must not be changed during development period to the new planning department employee.
- 396
75
votes
16
answers
6k
views
How to suggest changes as a recently-hired employee? [closed]
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 ...
79
votes
20
answers
31k
views
How do you handle your Project Manager
I currently work for a company that has recently downsized. I do all in-house work, client installs, builds, QA, and, well, basically all the in-house work.
My direct boss is VERY nontechnical and ...
3
votes
6
answers
4k
views
Should Development / Testing / QA / Staging environments be similar?
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.
...
Walter White
55
votes
17
answers
5k
views
Is a code review subjective or objective (quantifiable)?
I am putting together some guidelines for code reviews. We do not have one formal process yet and are trying to formalize it. And our team is geographically distributed.
We are using TFS for source ...
11
votes
5
answers
18k
views
Allow Administrator users to login as other users
Do you think it's a good practice to implement a possibilty to allow an administrator user to login in as another user, by-passing password? This could by implemented by a master password or a ...
Francois Zbinden
151
votes
6
answers
42k
views
Why hasn't a faster, "better" language than C come out? [closed]
With all the new "modern" languages out today, how is it that C is still heralded as the fastest and "closest to the machine"? I don't really believe in there ever being only one correct way to do ...
330
votes
63
answers
53k
views
Is 4-5 years the “Midlife Crisis” for a programming career?
I’ve been programming C# professionally for a bit over 4 years now. For the past 4 years I’ve worked for a few small/medium companies ranging from “web/ads agencies”, small industry specific software ...
45
votes
10
answers
61k
views
What's the difference between "use case", "User Story" and "Usage Scenario"?
Is there an exact, but simple and understandable defintion of the distinction between "use case", "User Story" and "Usage Scenario"?
there are quite a bunch of explanation, but right now, I see no ...
- 551
33
votes
14
answers
2k
views
Boss doesn't believe my time estimate... advice/backup? [duplicate]
I'm working at a startup software company -- 3 developers, less than 15 employees including the CEO. We deal exclusively with Windows Mobile, the .NET CF, and passing the information gathered from our ...
- 811
57
votes
42
answers
5k
views
Most regrettable design or programming decision you made? [closed]
I would like to hear what kind of design decisions you took and how did they backfire. Because of a bad design decision, I ended up having to support that bad decision forever (I also had a part in it)...
17
votes
4
answers
725
views
When is the right time to join open source project for programmer? [closed]
Most of the newcomers in programming start with basic projects to start with programming. Most of the C++ progammers spend some time with puzzles and contests but this is not always helpful. Sometimes ...
- 287
19
votes
6
answers
2k
views
Has anyone used Sproutcore?
Has anyone used Sproutcore for a web application? If so, can you give me a description of your experience? I am currently considering it, but I have a few concerns. First, the documentation is bad/...
Sam Lee
142
votes
87
answers
23k
views
How to become a "faster" programmer?
My last job evaluation included just one weak point: timeliness. I'm already aware of some things I can do to improve this but what I'm looking for are some more.
Does anyone have tips or advice on ...
68
votes
9
answers
41k
views
Can Agile/Scrum be used by 1 or 2 developers?
Everything I've been reading and researching up to this point describes how Agile/Scrum works great with teams of about 4 to 6 members, maybe even more.
In my current shop, we have about 8 developers ...
- 1,085
156
votes
34
answers
14k
views
How do you make people accept code review? [duplicate]
All programmers have their style of programming. But some of the styles are let’s say... let’s not say. So you have code review to try to impose certain rules for good design and good programming ...
41
votes
7
answers
19k
views
Are all languages basically the same?
Recently, i had to understand the design of a small program written in a language i had no idea about (ABAP, if you must know). I could figure it out without too much difficulty.
I realize that ...
6
votes
6
answers
413
views
Best Practices or Project Standards
As a software development contractor I've worked on many projects with differing standards and conventions. Quite often these conventions go against the software best practices we know and 'love'.
...
- 169
432
votes
20
answers
128k
views
Should UTF-16 be considered harmful?
I'm going to ask what is probably quite a controversial question: "Should one of the most
popular encodings, UTF-16, be considered harmful?"
Why do I ask this question?
How many programmers are ...
20
votes
5
answers
7k
views
What do you do when a client requires Rich Text Editing on their website?
As we all know by now, XSS attacks are dangerous and really easy to pull off. Various frameworks make it easy to encode HTML, like ASP.NET MVC does:
<%= Html.Encode("string"); %>
...
- 6,368
28
votes
22
answers
65k
views
Why is VB so popular? [closed]
To me, Visual Basic seems clumsy, ugly, error-prone, and difficult to read. I'll let others explain why. While VB.net has clearly been a huge leap forward for the language in terms of features, I ...
9
votes
3
answers
706
views
What are some good criteria for using Tracer Bullets?
I was recently reading The Pragmatic Programmer for the first time and I came across the concept of Tracer Bullets. I realized that I had coded according to this model in the past and just kind of ...
- 210
159
votes
17
answers
73k
views
Windows Azure vs Amazon EC2 vs Google App Engine
From a developer point of view which platform would you consider for a large social web application? If you could provide some details on what you consider to be the strengths of which alternative it ...
iulianchira
188
votes
3
answers
61k
views
Meaning of MIT license
Suppose I use this ActionScript API released under MIT license
to build a software: http://www.cove.org/ape/docs/api/
Can I sell that software?
Do I need to give the source code of my software away?
...
- 2,011
37
votes
9
answers
3k
views
Design for future changes or solve the problem at hand [closed]
While writing the code or during design do you try to generalize the problem at the first instance itself or try to solve that very specific problem.
I am asking this because trying to generalize the ...
- 1,937
44
votes
12
answers
14k
views
How possible is it to estimate time for programming projects? [duplicate]
It seems like it is nearly impossible to get close because you could run into any number of issues and things not first anticipated. How close can we be expected to reasonably estimate? Our PM wants ...
- 2,663
21
votes
10
answers
4k
views
Best Practices and Etiquette for Setting up Email Notifications
If you were going to set up a Email Alerts for the customers of your website to subscribe to, what rules of etiquette ought to be followed?
I can think of a few off the top of my head:
Users can Opt-...
- 6,368
17
votes
8
answers
2k
views
What's it like to work in a large programming team?
I've always felt lucky to work in a small programming team. I think the most I've worked with is 11 programmers. What is it like working on a project with hundreds of developers? Thousands? What ...
- 579
63
votes
11
answers
2k
views
Have you dealt with space hardening?
I am very eager to study best practices when it comes to space hardening. For instance, I've read (though I can't find the article any longer) that some core parts of the Mars rovers did not use ...
- 18.7k
72
votes
37
answers
8k
views
How to handle people who lie on their resume [closed]
I'm conducting technical interviews to fill a few .NET positions. Many of the people I interview really do know .NET pretty well, but I find at least 90% embellish their skillset anywhere between "a ...