software development
Scott Koon recently wrote about the importance of discipline as a developer trait: Every month a new programming language or methodology appears, followed by devotees singing its praises from every corner of the Internet. All promising increases in productivity and quality. But there is one quality that all successful developers
patents
Every practicing programmer should read the Wikipedia article on software patents [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent], if you haven't already. > Many software companies are of the opinion that copyrights and trade secrets provide adequate protection against unauthorized copying of their innovations. Companies such as Oracle
.net
As I mentioned two weeks ago, my plan is to contribute $10,000 to the .NET open source ecosystem. $5,000 from me, and a matching donation of $5,000 from Microsoft. There's only two ground rules so far: 1. The project must be written in .NET managed
software development
I find it helpful to revisit Steve McConnell's list of classic development process mistakes [http://www.stevemcconnell.com/rdenum.htm], and the accompanying case study [http://www.stevemcconnell.com/rdmistak.htm], at least once every year. Stop me if you've heard this one before: > "
podcast
It was my great honor to participate in this week's epsiode of .NET Rocks! [http://www.dotnetrocks.com/default.aspx?showNum=232] .NET Rocks! [http://www.dotnetrocks.com/] is a long running internet radio talk show for software developers that goes all the way back to 2002. I&
software development
If I told you to choose between two technical books, one by renowned Windows author Charles Petzold, and another by some guy you've probably never heard of, which one would you pick? That's what I thought too. Until I sat down to read both of them.
open source
Hugh MacLeod asks, if open source is so great, where are all the open source billionaires? If Open Source software is free, then why bother spending money on Microsoft Partner stuff? I already know what Microsoft's detractors will say: "There's no reason whatsoever. $40 billion
security
I picked up a free copy of 19 Deadly Sins of Software Security [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0072260858/codihorr-20] at a conference last year. I didn't expect the book to be good because it was a free giveaway item from one of the the vendor
lisp
My previous entry, Twitter: Service vs. Platform, was widely misunderstood. I suppose I only have myself to blame, so I'll try to clarify with another example. Consider Reddit. The Reddit development team switched from Lisp to Python late in 2005: If Lisp is so great, why did we
software development
Electronic Arts is a lumbering corporate megalith today, pumping out yearly game franchise after yearly game franchise. It's easy to forget that EA was present at the very beginning of the computer game industry, innovating and blazing a trail for everyone to follow. Gamasutra's article We
software development
Alistair Cockburn maintains that software development is a cooperative game: If software development was really a science, you could apply the scientific method to it. If it was really engineering, then you could apply known engineering techniques. If software development was a matter of producing models, then you could spend
software development
I've seen a lot of painfully bad IT web comics in my day, but I'm happy to say that Bug Bash, by Hans Bjordahl, is not one of them. This particular strip is one of my favorites because it hits so close to home. Software developers