The Pragmatic Programmer has a given place in my list of must read books for professional developers. The subtitle “from journeyman to master” explains the contents very well. The book is made up of short chapters with concrete advice on how to become a master software developer. The 70 numbered tips are short and look… Continue reading The Pragmatic Programmer sets the Bar
Category: Software Development
Improve TFS Merge and Diff with TortoiseMerge
To always control exactly what is about to be commited is a best practice when working with source control. Unfortunately the TFS tooling is very limited, so I prefer using TortoiseMerge which is part of the TortoiseSVN package. Diff Using the built in TFS merge tool (diffmerge.exe) checking pending changes looks like this. Looking at… Continue reading Improve TFS Merge and Diff with TortoiseMerge
Why bad Programmers Still get Hired
If some programmers really are 10x more productive, how come that the 1x programmers get hired and manage to keep the jobs? I recently read the DZone republish of Troy Hunt‘s Measuring code quality with NDepend. Before going into details on NDepend, Troy shares an interesting observation on variances in professionalism. Something that has always… Continue reading Why bad Programmers Still get Hired
Developers held Accountable without Authority
With authority follows accountability. The other way around is also true. Anyone who’s held accountable has to have authority. Unfortunately it is far too common that developers are held accountable for a project, even though they don’t have any real authority. They typically are responsible for the delivery, but the authority stays on management level… Continue reading Developers held Accountable without Authority
The Old New Thing: User Resistance
Anyone working with the introduction of new systems in organizations probably has experienced user resistance. It is tempting to try to counter the actual arguments brought forward by the users, but that is just a waste of time. As holes are knocked in one argument there will always be another one rising, in and endless… Continue reading The Old New Thing: User Resistance