Comment Clear case ? Pshaw! (Score 1) 182
You're just holding it wrong!
Comment What your boss really wants to hear... (Score 1) 520
Any arrangement In India.
(or maybe China)
Seriously, if you need to worry about "seating arrangements", you probably need a housecleaning. If the work is so mindnumbing that where/how a developer sits is important, maybe offshoring it would be doing the employees a favor...
Comment Everyone over 40 isn't a COBOL programmer... (Score 1) 599
Not sure I understand the fixation w/ COBOL here...I'm well past 40, and have only wrangled a bit of COBOL in my 30 year career. Lots of C/C++, Java, Perl, Python, Javascript, etc., but damn little COBOL.
As stated elsewhere, one cause is probably just burning out and moving on to something else. Or moving to the position of manager who's making those hiring decisions. Or, if you're actually good at software engineering, moving into consulting.
ftm, if you're a great developer w/ lots of experience, you probably also have a pretty wide network. The last 16+ years of my career, CV's have been just a formality (if required at all), cuz I already knew the hiring manager.
Linux Kernel 2.6.32 Released 195
diegocg writes "Linus Torvalds has officially released the version 2.6.32 of the Linux kernel. New features include virtualization memory de-duplication, a rewrite of the writeback code faster and more scalable, many important Btrfs improvements and speedups, ATI R600/R700 3D and KMS support and other graphic improvements, a CFQ low latency mode, tracing improvements including a 'perf timechart' tool that tries to be a better bootchart, soft limits in the memory controller, support for the S+Core architecture, support for Intel Moorestown and its new firmware interface, run-time power management support, and many other improvements and new drivers. See the full changelog for more details."
Comment No, they're not worth it. (Score 1) 345
Code reviews are highly subjective, human endeavors. I've certainly wasted more than a little of my life in "reviews" that were nothing more than
personality driven, agenda laden time-wasters that usually surfaced little more than grammatical erros in comments. *If* the reviewers actually
bother to look at the code before making comments.
Here's a little exersize you might want your boss to be involved in:
- Grab an arbitrary piece of code from outside your organization.
- Inject 10 or so errors or other issues into it
- Divide your usual review crew into 2 groups to review the code separately.
- Tell one group that the code was written by a new intern, so you'd like them to eyeball it.
- Tell the other group that the code was written by your most senior developer (preferably, one w/ a big ego), and they need to review it "cuz the boss says we have to"
- Compare how many issues each group finds/reports.
I suspect you already have a good idea what the outcome will be. That should be enough to tell you how effective code reviews are.
Automated code formatters/code inspectors, along with decent compilers/linkers (or interpreters) will surface most of the issues that code reviews find.
Instead of pissing away valuable developer time, put those reviewers to work writing and executing tests. Right away, you'll discover whether the code is testable. And then you'll discover whether its actually correct.
Tests don't have egos, agendas, personal axes to grind, or coworkers they don't want to piss off. They don't take vacations or sick days. They don't have opinions about the author of the code. They usually don't leave the company. They generally don't have an opinion about how many/few comments there are, or if the code has been formatted to corporate spec (unless those tests are executed as part of the automated tools mentioned above). Sure they can be drudgery to write, but its the only real way to know if the code actually does whats its supposed to.
Abused IT Workers Ready To Quit 685
An anonymous reader writes to tell us that new research is suggesting as many as a quarter of all IT staff in small to medium businesses have suffered some sort of abuse and are looking for careers elsewhere (PDF). "The study also found that over a third have suffered from sleepless nights or headaches as a result of IT problems at work, while 59 percent spend between one and 10 hours a week working on IT systems outside normal hours. ... The biggest cause of stress among IT staff is problems arising from operational day-to-day tasks, the survey found. Another major cause came from loss of critical data, according to Connect."
Comment Re:If thats the "10 coolest"... (Score 1) 198
A leisurely stroll through Freshmeat should be sufficient.
Of course, TFA's author apparently couldn't be bothered to do that either...
Comment If thats the "10 coolest"... (Score 0) 198
...then open source is in deep trouble.
Clue for the TFA'a author: there are lots of very interesting open source projects that don't have a damn thing to do with Linux!
Al-Qaeda Web Sites Go Offline 284
thefickler writes "Four out of the five Al-Qaeda online forums have disappeared. The terrorist group used these forums to relay messages to its supporters. The four that have gone missing seem to have taken a hit back on September 10, the day before the annual video marking the 9/11 attacks was due to be disseminated. No one knows who is responsible for the sites' disappearance."
Comment Re:Glaring Omission: Groovy (Score 1) 415
Doh! Mea culpa...I guess 4 pages of CIO.com clutter left me cross eyed. Or maybe its the holiday weekend Friday afternoon.
(Note to self: use Edit->Find... before commenting)
But I still think its important enough to deserve more than a single passing comment.
Is Silicon Valley Reproducible? 415
sunil99 asks: "Paul Graham, in his latest essay, looks at the ingredients which make Silicon Valley what it is. From the essay: 'Could you reproduce Silicon Valley elsewhere, or is there something unique about it? It wouldn't be surprising if it were hard to reproduce in other countries, because you couldn't reproduce it in most of the US, either. What does it take to make [a Silicon Valley]?'. In his opinion: 'I think you only need two kinds of people to create a technology hub: rich people and nerds'. He concludes that if a city can attract these people, it can stand a chance of replicating Silicon Valley. What do you think of Paul's opinions? If you would like some changes to the current Silicon Valley, what would those be?" While the people are an important part to the Silicon Valley experience, they are only part of the requirement. What local characteristics must also be present, even if Silicon Valley is to be duplicated on a smaller scale? What draws technology companies to a specific location?
