Phone Interviews Can Be So Painful To Do

I haven’t written much here lately due to the crazy workload at my job. Working for a big company can be really complicated and this project is the second highest profile thing we are doing this year. But being the lead iOS person I have to interview folks for

How Many People Does It Take To Ship Software?

There are a million jokes along the line of “How many _____ does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” Sometimes I laugh at work at how many people are involved in the project I am working on. We have me and one other programmer and 20-30 other people that we

My Biggest Regret As A Programmer

A little over 20 years ago I was at a crossroads. My second company was petering out when our 5 years of building Deltagraph for the publisher ended (they wanted to move into the nascent internet space). At that point I had 13 years experience as a programmer but also

The Myth Of Reusability

The story always begins with a complaint. Executives complain that software is taking too long and costing too much to build. Some bright person suggests that money could be saved if software were built to be reusable, thus allowing slightly more expense to result in components that could be leveraged

All Code Is Fleeting, Don’t Act Like It’s Forever

Of all the things I have written in my 34 years of being a programmer, the code I have written that I know is still in use is very limited. Prior to my previous job the only app I know still exists is Deltagraph, which for some reason is still

Programming Is Not A Dying Profession

While reading the post Coding Academies Are Nonsense I came across the statement that coding academies aren’t worth any investment because it’s a dying profession. The author goes on to say “I see coding shrinking as a widespread profession. Not because software is going away, but because the

Software Estimation Is A Crock

After 34 years of being a programmer I still get a kick out of people thinking there is a magical way to make software estimation work. All during my career I’ve heard person after person declare estimation is broken but that they have some way to make it work

I Remember the Day The Internet Started But I Fear For the Future

Twenty years ago this week Netscape went public. I've always thought of this as the day the internet really started. I was contracting at a company nearby that had also recently gone public (before I got there) and I remember we watched the IPO looking at a page Netscape had

How Many Programming Technologies Can You Really Master?

I keep seeing companies or their recruiters advertising they are looking for people "with significant experience developing iOS and Android applications from scratch and will have a mastery of modern mobile and web technologies, including Java, HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, JSON and AJAX". There is no such person. You can master

The Most agile Project I Ever Did

When people think of Agile they usually think of a specific process like Scrum or Kanban. This story is more about dealing with continuous change, driven by the CEO, in what seemed insane at the start but actually ended up being a lot of fun. Yes fun. This was three

Why Do People Still Not Expect The Spanish Inquisition?

Not a day goes by that there isn’t a new story about companies or agencies getting hacked and user data exposed. Yet every one I read about is the same, they failed to properly protect their databases and systems and someone leaked or stole or exposed valuable data. It’

After 3 Decades In Programming, Looking At the Next 3 Decades

If you had a time machine and went back from today to my first day of work as a programmer in October, 1981, and told me what I would be doing today and what things would be like in the programming world I wouldn’t have believed you. Predicting what

Before You Fix The Bug Make Sure You Understand It Exactly

I am supporting the company I worked for until recently part time until they get someone else (I am taking time to work on my house) and today the server guy reported that the beta iOS app (which I support, there is also an older production version) generated a duplicate

Down With Downvoting

There are a lot of sites on the internet where people can post links to things or questions or even make statements. Generally people are allowed to vote in different ways to create a ranking of interest. There are a number of alternate systems for identifying reader interest. Reddit and

How I’ve Avoided Burnout During More Than 3 Decades As A Programmer

After reading a couple of posts about programmer burnout today I started to think about how I’ve kept interested even after working in such a long career (since 1981). Why do I still care to write code? Of course I covered some of this in my popular post Yes

It's Hard Today To Know Where To Spend Your Time Learning

I read Reddit Programming and Hacker News every day and every day there is something new and cool to read about. The problem is that I program for a living, and where I spend my time learning something new is always a gamble. I can't learn everything, I can't even

Programming Without A Net

I must admit that the thing I enjoy most in programming is doing something no one knows how to do, something that no query on stackoverflow.com finds an answer, something that's completely befuddling everyone around. Today that's harder to find, everything is public, everyone posts descriptions of even the

Requirements Is A Word That Needs To Go Away

Every time I hear the word requirements these days, I always think of the scene in 12 Years A Slave where they were told how much they had to pick that day to avoid being beaten. I don't know why exactly, but that word drives me nuts. As a software

Never Be A Programmer In A Suit

Military people wear uniforms to enforce the idea of unity. Business people wear suits to show they mean business. Yet I've only worn a suit one day as a programmer and that was my first day ever back in 1981. I got a migraine and had to go home at

What Makes a Programmer Good?

If a baseball hitter succeeds at least 30% of the time in getting a hit they are considered good. If a golfer routinely plays under par they are considered good. A shooter should hit the center of the target. A banker I suppose should roll in money. All of these

My Language Is Better Than Your Language

Or is it Your Language Is Better Than My Language, I forget. If there is anything programmers love to debate more than programming languages? Maybe, but this is pretty popular. Of course we do need more of a life. When I started programming for money in 1981, there weren't a

What You Don't Know Will Hurt You

For three different jobs in a row I've had to convince the team that tracking crashes in their apps was not only a good idea but necessary. Why this isn't obvious to everyone is not obvious to me. Even on StackOverflow, answering questions on iOS development, I am constantly amazed

Quality Requires QA

Today I read an analysis of why Facebook's iOS app has such dismal ratings.. Surprise, surprise, they don't believe in QA.  I've spent more than 3 decades writing apps, and I've seen this happen a lot and it always winds up terrible. Reminds me of a post I wrote 4

The Big Bang And Other Stupidities

At the place I am currently contracting they are in the midst of a giant replacement of everything project. My part of it, an iOS app, is mostly done. The bulk of the dozen or so applications are either incomplete, untested, or not even started; yet the deadline is now

Thankful To Be A Programmer

In the US today we celebrate Thanksgiving, and I really feel thankful that I can be a programmer. For over 33 years now I've been writing code professionally, never going more than 3 weeks without writing something. It's hard to imagine how many lines I've written. There is nothing like