Savvy Duck

It's a Job Title

2009-02-09T17:40:00.005-05:00

I read two blogs asking whether we are engineers or developers. Their argument is that computer science does not produce engineers because we don't have hard and fast rules for what optimally solves a given problem. Engineers, to them, are people that really deal with the physical laws of the universe when producing a given object in a predictable, mathematically provable way. They have

Losing Routine

2009-02-02T00:01:00.000-05:00

English has this wonderful term called "Senioritis" where US high school seniors often give up on hard school work in the final days, weeks or months before graduation. They figure they can coast to the end and do just fine. There is an unspoken wisdom to the pressure valve opening, especially at the realization that childhood is supposed to be over and now you must go off and live your life.

Do I Need a CS Degree to be a Software Developer?

2009-01-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

A degree in almost every field only indicates that you have met a minimum set of requirements. It is not an indication of proficiency in the practical application of the knowledge you gained through your degree. The degree is still valuable though and we should not underestimate its worth but we should understand its limits. First, great software developers come from all walks of life and do not

Being a Developer During a Recession Part 2

2009-01-19T07:00:00.001-05:00

A year ago I wrote some thoughts on preparing and weathering a layoff. I reread it this week after meeting a fellow in a hotel lobby. I was there with my wife and son because we had lost power in the recent ice storm that struck the north east. We lost power for several days and needed to find warm places to stay. He was there for the same reason. He was a tech writer for a Massachusetts company

GUIDs as Primary Keys or How to Walk Into an Argument

2009-01-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

I generally work on two kinds of projects: the big enterprise web application and the tiny startup web application. The requirements and processes for building these two projects are distinct. For example, the database in a big project could easily be Oracle or DB2 while a tiny or mid-size project may run on MySQL or SQL Server. Other differences include hardware and staffing resources. Before we

Can I Just Change Jobs?

2009-01-05T07:00:00.004-05:00

The topic of "Love it or Leave It" from Jeff Atwood is an old one that pops up every year. See these two links: 1. Jeff Atwood, "Coding Horror: Programming: Love It or Leave It,"http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001202.html. 2. Joel Spolsky, "The Joel on Software Discussion Group - Thinking of leaving the industry," http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.718003.14. Its

Back

2008-12-17T20:25:00.001-05:00

I disappeared around June for a number of reasons and some were great. My son was born and my free time disappeared pretty fast. I am not complaining at all either. My wife and I are always amazed by how wonderful we find him. Blogs take a sideline to one’s children every time. Another occurred a couple weeks later when I switched jobs. That was a dumb move on my part. Dumb doesn’t really

Lehman, layoffs and laughing

2008-09-15T10:29:00.002-04:00

I've watched some people laughing about the fall of Lehman brothers. I've seen some software developers snicker about people having to carry out boxes of belongings from offices. Please remember that there are a lot of software developers, IT, admin assistants, phone operators, security, envelope stuffers, money managers and a lot of other people that had nothing to do with the way that Lehman

I'm still around

2008-08-08T14:17:00.002-04:00

I haven't written a thing, beyond code, for over two months. I had a child and then switched jobs to a real family-friendly company. I learned that having a child means giving up nearly all your free time as the little one is completely dependent upon you at all times and there is always other, more important work to be done when the little one doesn't have an express need. That's not to say

Java: Getting Thread Time with ThreadMXBean

2008-06-06T17:22:00.010-04:00

Getting performance or timing information about an operation in a multithreaded Java application has always been a challenge. The problem has been that most stopwatch functions accounted for the time that the thread took to execute, but included time from other threads executing in parallel in the background. These other threads cause your thread to yield for a period and thus skew your

Methods for Evaluating CMS and ECM Platforms

2008-05-30T23:35:00.003-04:00

I’ve been evaluating nearly a dozen different CMS and ECM platforms, both OSS and commercial, for a little over a month to support an upcoming project. The experience has been very interesting, especially in regards for the need to carefully test the platform programmatically and in requirements definition. A “Content Management System” and an “Enterprise Content Management” platform have a few

Commercial Software and the Useful Salesperson

2008-05-27T20:40:00.001-04:00

It’s the Friday before Memorial Day and most of it was spent evaluating a commercial ECM’s (Enterprise Content Management) API. It has been a very long time since I’ve been able to bang away at a commercial API and see how it does. It was really nice, exhilarating may be pushing it, but it was really nice. It was nice simply because the API and the samples were documented. Most of my friends and

Working Hours

2008-05-23T09:04:00.000-04:00

A forty hour work week is 2080 hours of work per year or 260 8-hour days. A fifty hour work week is 2600 hours of work per year or 325 8-hour days. A sixty hour work week is 3120 hours of work per year or 390 8-hour days. Working 8 hours a day, seven days a week is 56 hours of work per week or 2912 hours per year. There are about 8765 hours in a year according to Google. Sleeping the average 7.5

Ruining a Nice Day

2008-05-05T08:27:00.001-04:00

I’m going outside of software development on this one. Sorry, but I got to do it. I read pretty much everything Seth Godin posts and agree with a lot of it. There is a kind of optimism in his writing that nearly always brightens my day. He’s also pretty chatty, he’ll argue with you via email if you challenge him or are just curious about something. His standards are high too, which is always

Quid Pro Quo

2008-04-24T17:26:00.000-04:00

"Quid Pro Quo" is the saying used to justify the recent switch from LGPL to GPLv3 in Ext 2.1. It does seem pretty fair for a software company to spend a few hundred dollars on a commercial license when the library saves thousands in development costs. Some software companies spend more on free soda for the staff than they will on the license. So good for the guys at Ext, they built a pretty

Patents: Value, Process and Infringements

2008-04-18T07:58:00.001-04:00

I often ponder the importance of software patents in the relation to building a strong software company. I'm in the camp that believes that software patents are nearly useless in the practical sense and yet they are still somehow valuable. Software startups try to get patents in order to show that they have a meritorious idea. Just putting in a provisional patent application is enough to show an

Finish Lines

2008-04-11T08:04:00.001-04:00

Crunch came to an end last Friday and I'm reflecting on the way this cycle ended compared to others in my career. I find myself missing writing desktop and server-based applications and their distinct ends. I wish for the the real sense of closure and accomplishment that comes with releasing a product. Web applications, like Salesforce, Google Apps, and now Photoshop, have a development cycle

Crunch

2008-03-26T21:46:00.004-04:00

Beep beep beep... Hand hits snooze. Black Beep beep beep... Hand hits snooze harder. Beep beep beep... Groan. Movement somewhere. Kicked. Ow. Upright. Somebody said something. Stand up. 6 AM. Dark. Cold. Scuttle to next room. Turn on the lights and head to the desk. VPN in to work, check email. Disaster != true. Kitchen. Coffee: 6 tablespoons light roast coffee and 10 "cups" of water. Squirrels

Lifestyle Companies

2008-03-20T07:51:00.001-04:00

A friend was talking to me about his job and how things are progressing. Rather, not progressing. Things haven't changed in terms of investments, staffing, customers nor product roadmap development. The company is trudging forward with no real worries of succeeding or failing but certainly not growing and no apparent idea where it is going. I grinned at his story and asked whether the founders

Interviewing the Employer

2008-03-10T08:10:00.003-04:00

I often read blogs that have tips for interviewing candidates. I’m always looking for questions that may give me some real deep insight as to what the person is like to work with. It is also important to ask a potential employer about life at the company but I see only a few blogs about the subject. Today I’m writing a little about what to ask the startup type company to see if it is a good

Firefox Browser Stats

2008-03-07T15:12:00.005-05:00

I'm a stats junky and since starting this site there have been nearly 9,000 visitors. I know its not a big number, but that's since December 24th and I really didn't think the site would get this many hits. I'm very thankful and really happy. I always like looking at browser stats because I want to be sure I'm keeping with the developer community I serve. It was no surprise then that nearly 73%

Refactoring: Communication and Time

2008-03-06T19:39:00.001-05:00

.refactor2 p.p1 {margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px} A recent lunch led to a great conversation about refactoring other developers’ code and when it is reasonable to do so. Generally, I believe it's unwise to refactor other developer's code without talking about it first. Especially when the code you want to refactor is a peer or a lead. We came to a conclusion that it is

Javascript: Ext, SSL, S.gif and D'Oh!

2008-03-04T08:28:00.002-05:00

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Crunches

2008-03-04T07:44:00.001-05:00

.crunches p.p1 {margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; } Crunches, everybody gets them and I should be back in another day or two.

Analogies, Construction Workers and How to Derail Your Own Technology Presentation

2008-02-26T07:32:00.001-05:00

.analogiesconstruction p.p1 {margin: 8.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-indent: 28.0px; } Analogies are great for explaining complex subjects in everyday terms. A great example is the analogy that "Software Development is like building a house." That analogy comes up all the time because it seems to so aptly describe how software is written to people outside of software development. Analogies are