My wife is a really good writer and she once gave me a great piece of advice for some documentation I was working on: Know Your Audience. This has helped me to write better documentation. Over the years, I have come to realize that the same advice applies when writing code. Who is the Audience… Read More »
One of the odd things about programming is that you are writing for two different audiences. One is the dumbest device ever invented (it does exactly what you tell it to do) and the other is a (hopefully) intelligent programmer who will need to read this code later. We spend a fair amount of time… Read More »
Over the years, I have come to the amusing realization that many people feel like they could program if they just tried. You know the type. He (or she) has used computers for a while. He picked up Computer Programming for Total Morons or Object Oriented Programming in C++ and Java in an Hour and… Read More »
Why is it that some people regularly suggest that someday soon we won’t need programmers? I’ve recently been seeing this as part of the IT outsourcing debate. But, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen it. The first time I saw this meme was shortly after I started programming professionally 17 years ago. I talked… Read More »