software development
Every software project I’ve ever worked on has accrued technical debt over time: Technical Debt is a wonderful metaphor developed by Ward Cunningham to help us think about this problem. In this metaphor, doing things the quick and dirty way sets us up with a technical debt, which is
software development concepts
Mistakes are inevitable on any software project. But mistakes, if handled appropriately, are OK. Mistakes can be intercepted, adjusted, and ultimately addressed. The root of deep, fatal software project problems is not knowing when you’re making a mistake. These types of mistakes tend to fester into massive, systemic project
software development concepts
I was chatting on the phone with a friend of mine a few days ago, and he described a project he recently inherited. It was the work of a half-dozen different developers, who each built their parts of the project in a completely different way with little to no communication
code organization
I generally dislike these kinds of “Me, too!” posts, but I have to make an exception for Ned Batchelder’s excellent blog entry on deleting code. I’ve often run into this phenomenon with other developers, and it bugged the heck out of me, although I couldn’t quantify exactly