What is it about the programming field that makes everyone believe that it is easy? I can’t count the number of times I have had someone tell me: All you have to do is… How hard can it be? You just… It won’t take that long. It’s just a little program. etc. Most of these… Read More »
In The Forgotten Engineering Principle, I went on at some length about the concept of Good Enough. I originally began thinking about this idea over a decade ago in the context of Stylus-Based Computers (what are now called Tablet PCs). I hadn’t thought about the concept for quite a long time. However, in doing a… Read More »
Over the last few years, I’ve been frustrated with the Software Engineering industry. I was actually trained as an engineer, and much of what I see passed off as software engineering is not engineering. I’ve been mulling this over for some time without being able to put my finger on the part that bothers me.… Read More »
The subject of naming in code continues. In O’Reilly Network: Ill-monikered Variables and Creative Class Naming [May. 18, 2004], Tim O’Brien adds his comments to the topic of naming in programs. He picks up with Andy Lester’s earlier comments and goes a little further. O’Brien makes the suggestion that creative names are much better than… Read More »
Almost fifteen years ago, I stumbled across the concept of version control in the form of RCS. I wasn’t real sure that this tool was going to be useful for me. After all, it required more work that did not contribute directly to producing code. In order to try it out, I began using RCS… Read More »
And just to prove that some ideas appear in many places all at once, Andy Lester explores naming again in O’Reilly Network: The world’s two worst variable names [Mar. 07, 2004]. Apparently, Lester is reviewing the second edition of Code Complete, one of my favorite books on programming, and says there is an entire chapter… Read More »
One of the fundamental laws of the universe could be called the Law of Unintended Consequences. This law is as universal as Murphy’s Law, but not as well recognized. To me, the gut-level understanding of this law is one of the things that shows the difference between a really good programmer and someone who just… Read More »
Isn’t it interesting how some ideas will surface in different unrelated places at close to the same time. O’Reilly Network: On the importance of names [Feb. 15, 2004] talks about how important the right name is for the success of a project. I think it may be more important not only for recognition but to… Read More »
What does it mean for an object to die? In C++, there are several distinct and well-defined stages in the death of an object. Other languages do this a little differently, but the general concepts remain the same. This is the basic chain of events for an item on the stack. Object becomes inaccessible Object… Read More »
I’ve been thinking more on the issue of Magic Constants. Have you ever noticed that when some people first understand the idea of symbolic constants, they want to collect all of the constants they’ve defined together in one spot?