Indoor enthusiast. Co-founder of Stack Overflow and Discourse. Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about. Find me here:
Microsoft has finally activated the most aggressive part of their Windows Genuine Advantage program -- active notifications. After downloading the latest Windows updates, if your Windows cd-key doesn't validate against Microsoft's online database of cd-keys, you may be greeted with this unpleasant five-second mandatory delay dialog
When I wrote that the Mac Mini was an underpowered, expensive box at the beginning of 2005, I had no idea that Apple would do something wonderful to fix this: switch to Intel x86 CPUs. I guess Apple has conveniently forgotten that whole "supercomputer on a chip" marketing
The last post about programmers and chefs reminded me of a point raised in the classic Pragmatic Progammers' presentation Herding Racehorses, Racing Sheep: vs Instructions that are appropriate for a novice may be totally inappropriate for an expert. This is something I touched on a while back in Level
From an audio interview with Ron Jeffries: The reason the kitchen is a mess is not because the kitchen is poorly designed, it's because we didn't do the dishes after every meal. Michael Feathers recently wrote an eerily similar entry about the professional chef's
I'm often asked why the book Refactoring [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201485672/codihorr-20] isn't included in my recommended developer reading list [https://blog.codinghorror.com/recommended-reading-for-developers/]. Although I own the book, and I've read it twice, I felt it was too
Here's a not-so-gentle reminder from David Pickett that some programming interview questions [http://blogs.msdn.com/davidlem/archive/2006/05/16/598696.aspx] – in this case, "how would you write a routine to copy a file?" – are, well, stupid [http://exold.com/article/stupid-interview-questions]*: > Q.
I've had great success using ethernet sniffers (such as Etherdetect [http://www.etherdetect.com/], or Ethereal [http://www.ethereal.com/]) to troubleshoot communication problems. Installing a sniffer, even after installing the required WinPcap packet capture library [http://www.winpcap.org/install/default.htm], doesn't require a
From the IEEE article Why Software Fails: Last October, for instance, the giant British food retailer J Sainsbury had to write off its US $526 million investment in an automated supply-chain management system. Merchandise was stuck in the company's depots and warehouses and was not getting through to
The concept of egoless programming, as described by Johanna Rothman [http://www.jrothman.com/]: > Twenty-five years ago, Jerry Weinberg published The Psychology of Computer Programming [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0932633420/codihorr-20]. I discovered the book in 1977, and decided I wanted to work as an egoless
I recently happened upon Tom Raftery's blog [http://www.tomrafteryit.net/finally-you-can-subscribe-to-an-irish-job-search/]. I'm sure Tom's a great guy, but what's up with all the visual noise on his blog [http://web-graphics.com/mtarchive/001736.php]? I count 24 pieces of flair [http:
I often struggle when writing new blog entries. What should I write about? What's the first sentence? What should the title [http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/typography-for-headlines.html] be? When do I end, and what do I end with? Copyblogger's Copywriting 101 [http://www.copyblogger.
The Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming, as originally established in Jerry Weinberg's book The Psychology of Computer Programming [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0932633420/codihorr-20]: 1. Understand and accept that you will make mistakes. The point is to find them early, before they make it into