Signs that you’re a bad programmer

Most of these faults were discovered the hard way by the author himself, and cataloged in order to think about them some more and hopefully purge them from his own work.

This article is also written for the manager who’s trying to help a problem employee or judge a candidate for hire, for at least a few of the listed examples have been taken from real-world interviews and code reviews.

And finally, this article is written for you so that you can render yourself smug on your next code review. Given that you’re impeccable, of course.

 

The Story of the Mexican Fisherman

An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked.  Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna.  The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, “only a little while.”

The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos.  I have a full and busy life.”

The American scoffed, “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you.  You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat.  With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats.  Instead of selling your catch to a middleman you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening your own cannery.  You would control the product, processing, and distribution.  You would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then LA and eventually New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “15 – 20 years.”

“But what then?” Asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part.  When the time is right you would announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich, you would make millions!”

“Millions – then what?”

The American said, “Then you would retire.  Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos.”

Source: http://www.protolink.com/MexicanFisherman.html

 

Top 10 Reasons Not To Have A Job

Source: http://hunternuttall.com/blog/2007/12/top-10-reasons-not-to-have-a-job/

1. Your life or your money.

In the original Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo Entertainment System (1987), there was a mean old man who would lock you in a room in a deadly underground labyrinth and demand that you “leave your life or money.” You had to give up either 50-100 rupees or a heart container in order to proceed.

That’s not so different from employment, is it? If you want to quit your job so you can have a life, you have to give up the money. If you want the money, you have to hand over control of your life. I don’t think either choice is acceptable.

Image from The Legend of Zelda (1987).

 

Demand Shifts for IT Skills

So far, the year 2009 bodes both good and ill for IT professionals with Internet skills, at least from the perspective of Foote Partners LLC, a research firm specializing in IT salaries and skills compensation.

First, the good news: In general, IT skills remain in demand despite the recession. According to Foote’s recent research, culled in part from surveying a pool of 84,000 IT professionals in 1,960 companies in the U.S. and Canada, a majority of IT workers surveyed continue to get at least 7 percent of their pay for specific skills, such as networking, security, database management, or project management.

The bad news? Some specialized skills, including Web development, have suffered a reduction in demand.

David Foote, CEO of the eponymous firm, says demand has grown for IT skills related to project management, architecture, and security. According to data from a set of 22,550 respondents to Foote’s survey, IT security certifications grew nearly 6 percent over the last two years as a percentage of overall median pay.

But the same sample of respondents reported that skills related to Web development certifications dropped 36.8 percent as a percentage of median pay in the same timeframe.

Foote’s research in the area of non-certified IT skills reveals a similar trend: Over the last two years, respondents have reported that management, methodology, and process skills have grown as a percentage of IT staffers’ premium pay by nearly 21 percent. In contrast, Web and e-commerce development has grown just 3.5 percent as a non-certified skill.

What gives? Isn’t the Web the way forward for many IT pros?

David Foote says many firms, especially in healthcare, retail, finance, and education, hired an abundance of experts in specific kinds of online applications in recent years. Many of these were pilot projects, and when the going’s gotten tough, they have been cut mercilessly.

At the same time, Foote points out that demand has risen for IT skills involved in designing and overseeing an organizational move to automated processes in the data center. Ironically, being able to help design and implement technology that reduces headcount is more popular than swelling the IT ranks with specialized Web-related expertise.

Further, these kinds of skills will come in handy as industries consolidate: “With the anticipated escalation in recession-driven mergers and acquisitions creating an enormous amount of integration-related activity, IT architecture and project management expertise are [sic] in more demand than ever,” Foote writes in his report’s executive summary.

Another expert confirms the trend. “Enterprises today are more concerned with solving business problems than with employing the ‘latest technology,’ ” writes Tom Nolle, CEO of the CIMI Corp. consultancy, in an email. “If you go to the online forums for IT and networking, you find all kinds of questions that sound like, ‘Why can’t my management accept that my ideas need to be implemented even if I can’t prove any business value whatsoever?’ The executives look at this sort of thing and laugh. Project managers are typically very connected to the business justification and becoming ever more so, and technical types are fleeing justification more every day.”

Bottom line? IT is still hiring, and online applications are still important, but demand has shifted from specialized skills, including Web development, to architectural expertise.
Source:InternetEvolution Written by Mary Jander

 

Windows 7 Scenic Ribbon: The next generation user experience for presenting commands in Win32 applications.

Windows 7 includes a new user interface platform component that enables existing and new Windows application to take advantage of the next generation commanding experience (“Ribbon”). In this session, you’ll learn about the features provided by the ribbon, the Win32 application programming interfaces required to use it, and simple techniques for adding a ribbon to your application.

 

Must Read: 16 steps to write flexible business validation in C# using validation blocks

Must read pentru orice developer, din păcate se referă doar la C#, însă un Java dev ce se respectă ştie cums e face migraţie.

16 steps to write flexible business validation in C# using validation blocks

 

Silver Light 2 a ieşit în lume.

Silverlight 2 Final Release is out

1) Install Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1
This add-on for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 or Visual Web Developer Express with SP1 will install the necessary Visual Studio updates, Silverlight project templates, developer runtime, and SDK. For additional information read the overview and the Silverlight 2 Readme Notes.

2) Install Microsoft Expression Blend 2 Service Pack 1
This service pack for Expression Blend allows designers to create graphics for Silverlight 2 applications.

3) Install Deep Zoom Composer
This tool allows you to prepare your images for use with the Deep Zoom feature in Silverlight 2.\

 

Nu trece mult şi Google Chrome deacum e nociv :))

Georgios Kasselakis unul din scriitorii de pe renumitul OS News a scris un articol despre nocivitatea noului WebBrowser lansat de google: Chrome.
Google Chrome Considered Harmful
El utilizează ca argumente însăşi textul de pe benzile desenate, care au fost utilizate de către GGL ca o mică campanie de promovare a produsului.

 

A fresh take on the browser Google Chrome

Chrome is the name of the new Google browser, releasing on Tuesday, September 2nd. The buzz is spreading all over the web, and onto the mainstream media too.

The comic book introducing the concepts behind Chrome was drawn up by Scott McCloud, and is available online here or there or over at agglom.

PS: logoul nul pot băga, căi cevato ne to cu ImageUploaderul de la WP.

 

Clone Detective for Visual Studio

Multe ca atare nu trebuie de adăugat aici: Bomboană pentru programatori, nu trebuie mult să săpi să cauţi unde se poate de făcut vun refactoring. Şi partea cea mai bună: E GRATIS (like all the good stuff in life )
Clone Detective for Visual Studio

Clone Detective for Visual Studio