programmers

community

Stack Overflow Careers: Amplifying Your Awesome

That Stack Overflow thing we launched a year ago? It’s been going pretty well so far. Of course, everyone knows you could code Stack Overflow in a long weekend. It’s trivial. Assembling a worldwide community of smart, engaged software developers? That’s a whole different ball of wax.

By Jeff Atwood ·
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software development concepts

The Interview With The Programmer

If the internet has perfected anything, it’s the art of the crappy, phoned-in, half-assed email “interview.” For all those who have bemoaned the often pathetic state of internet journalism, when it comes to interviews, you’re largely correct. The purpose of most of these interviews is quick and dirty

By Jeff Atwood ·
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motivation

How to Motivate Programmers

There’s an inherent paradox in motivating programmers. I think this Geek Hero Comic illustrates it perfectly: It’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed even in myself. Nothing motivates like having another programmer tell you they’re rewriting your code because it sucks. Dave Thomas has talked about this for

By Jeff Atwood ·
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hardware

Hardware is Cheap, Programmers are Expensive

Given the rapid advance of Moore’s Law, when does it make sense to throw hardware at a programming problem? As a general rule, I’d say almost always. Consider the average programmer salary here in the US: You probably have several of these programmer guys or gals on staff.

By Jeff Atwood ·
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