/Community

Many of us have a natural tendency to let little things pile up.  This gives rise to the notion of the so-called spring cleaning.  The weather turns warm and going outside becomes reasonable, so we take the opportunity to do some kind of deep cleaning. Of course, this may not apply to you.  Perhaps you keep your house ...

I like variety.  In pursuit of this preference, I spend some time management consulting with enterprise clients and some time volunteering for ''office hours'' at a startup incubator.  Generally, this amounts to serving as ''rent-a-CTO'' for startup founders in half hour blocks.  This provides me with the spice of life, I ...

I can almost sense the indignation from some of you.  You read the title and then began to seethe a little.  Then you clicked the link to see what kind sophistry awaited you.  ''There is no substitute for peer review.'' Relax.  I agree with you.  In fact, I think that any robust review process should include a ...

Today, I'd like to offer a somewhat lighthearted treatment to a serious topic.  I generally find that this tends to offer catharsis to the frustrated.  And the topic of code review tends to lead to lots of frustration. When talking about code review, I always make sure to offer a specific distinction.  We can divide code ...

I have long since cast my lot with the software industry.  But, if I were going to make a commercial to convince others to follow suit, I can imagine what it would look like.  I'd probably feature cool-looking, clear whiteboards, engaged people, and frenetic design of the future.  And a robot or two.  Come help us ...

For years, I can remember fighting the good fight for unit testing.  When I started that fight, I understood a simple premise.  We, as programmers, automate things.  So, why not automate testing? Of all things, a grad school course in software engineering introduced me to the concept back in 2005.  It hooked me ...

As a teenager, I remember having a passing interest in hacking.  Perhaps this came from watching the movie Sneakers.  Whatever the origin, the fancy passed quickly because I prefer building stuff to breaking other people's stuff.  Therefore, what I know about hacking pretty much stops at understanding terminology and high ...

During my younger days, I worked for a company that made a habit of a strategic acquisition.  They didn't participate in Time Warner style mergers, but periodically they would purchase a smaller competitor or a related product.  And on more than one occasion, I inherited the lead role for the assimilating software from one of ...

The balance among types of feedback drives some weird interpersonal dynamics and balances.  For instance, consider the rather trite (if effective) management technique of the ''compliment sandwich.''  Managers with a negative piece of feedback precede and follow that feedback with compliments.  In that fashion, the compliments ...

More years ago than I'd care to admit, I took a software engineering course as part of my graduate CS program.  At the time, I worked a full-time job during the day and did remote classes in the evening.  As a result, I disproportionately valued classes with applicability to my job.  And this class offered plenty ...