General Development

Correlation Between Typing Speed and Programming Competence

dmarx — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:50:00 -0500

A colleague recently asked me, "Have you noticed that the better developers we've worked with are also fast typists?" I acknowledged that I had noticed relatively quick typing speed to be a common trait of most of the best developers that I know.

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My Personal Blog Policies

dmarx — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:10:00 -0500

The recent posting of the The Oracle Social Media Participation Policy on Justin Kestelyn's (Oracle Technology Network Editor in Chief) blog has caused me to reevaluate my own personal and previously unwritten policies that affect how and what I write in this blog.

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Software Engineering One of 2010's Best Jobs

dmarx — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 10:01:00 -0500

I have recently had several colleagues and friends with the Systems Engineer job title brag (trying to convince themselves, no doubt) about Money magazine ranking Systems Engineer their #1 job in Best Jobs in America 2009.

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Favorite Development Cheatsheets

dmarx — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:52:00 -0500

Although modern search engines have made it easier than ever to look up various details, it is still sometimes nice to have a go-to resource to refresh my memory about certain development tasks. I first started to appreciate materials like this when I encountered the famous Oracle data dictionary wall posters (such as this TUSC-provided poster and the Quest poster).

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Must-Read Software Development Resources for 2009

dmarx — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:18:00 -0500

This post is really two posts in one. The first (and lengthier) portion focuses on online blog posts and articles that I consider "must-read" for software developers. The second, shorter section provides a quick overview of the articles contained in the most recent edition (Winter 2009) of the RMOUG newsletter.

Must-Read Software Development Articles of 2009

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Best of 2009: A Software Development-Oriented Collection

dmarx — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:23:00 -0500

It's that time of the year when it is popular to list top articles, blog posts, and features from the previous year. This blog post collects some of these "best of" collections for 2009 that are related specifically to software development. I also include my own top ten list of the top ten posts in my blog during 2009.

Most Popular of Cogitations and Speculations

The ten most popular posts in my blog were as follows (in order from tenth most popular listed first to most popular listed last):

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Significant Software Development Developments of 2009

dmarx — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:07:00 -0500

I have blogged previously regarding the events that affected me most significantly in the world of software development in 2007 and 2008. In this post, I do the same for 2009 with the usual caveats: there is no way to truly measure what is most significant and even if there was, the totals would be different for different people.

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When Resistance is Futile (or Worse)

dmarx — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:35:00 -0500

I enjoyed several days in Southern California (SoCal) the week before Christmas.

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The High Cost of Not Asking Questions

dmarx — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:25:00 -0500

Organizations pay a high price when their software developers do not feel comfortable asking questions of each other and learning from each other. Developers can learn quite a bit from one another and can the free exchange of ideas and solutions can directly and indirectly improve the organization's ability to deliver quality software in a timely manner.

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The Problem of the Open Source Commons: Harsh Economic Realities of Open Source Software

dmarx — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:40:00 -0500

The apparent ultimate fate of Sun Microsystems may be the most obvious example of the difficulty associated with earning significant revenues developing and sponsoring open source software. A particular open source product may be considered highly valuable by many users who, given the appropriate license agreement, never actually back up this perceived value with any type of monetary compensation.

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The Positive Impact of Java Users Groups

dmarx — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 23:41:00 -0500

The last Java.net poll asked "Do you belong to a Java users group?" and of the nearly 300 votes (at time of this writing), well over half of the respondents stated that they are in someway affiliated with or have participated in a local Java users group. I have blogged before about my appreciation of user groups and I have definitely benefited from the existence of Java users groups.

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Realizing That I Still Have Much to Learn

dmarx — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:26:00 -0500

Several years ago, I was asked to rate myself on my level of expertise with different programming languages and frameworks. Several people were surprised when I did not rank myself at the highest possible level for knowledge of Java, especially when several developers with far less software development in general and far less Java experience in particular rated their own Java skills at the maximum level.

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Internet Archive WayBack Machine: Valuable Technical Reference

dmarx — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:41:00 -0400

Have you ever bookmarked a really good technical resource, but were disappointed when you tried to access that page later and it was gone? Have you ever seen what looks like the perfect linked resource in a blog post, article, or book, but then found the referenced URL to not work? In short term cases such as an intermittent server issue or network problem, Google Cache can be an indispensable tool to see a cached version of the page.

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Reocities: GeoCities Rising from the Ashes

dmarx — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:06:00 -0400

I previously wrote about the potential loss of historical technical details as a result of the demise of Yahoo! GeoCities. I listed several useful technical pages hosted on GeoCities that might be lost. Others have also pointed out that GeoCities provided a perspective of the early days of personal web pages with profound value for those interested in studying the history of the web.

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Maintaining a Software Development Library (Books)

dmarx — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:28:00 -0400

For as long as I can remember, I have always loved books. When I was growing up and my parents would offer to buy my brothers and me something at the store, I'd almost always select some fictional book while my brothers would select toys. As an adult, I don't read as much fiction as I'd like, but I do buy and read (at least portions) of a lot of technical books. I've got technical books strewn around the house in several different book cases in several different rooms. My wife asks me to take more of them to work, but I have my two long book shelves at work filled as well.

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RMOUG Training Days 2010 Presentations

dmarx — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:27:00 -0400

I received word today that my two abstracts were accepted for Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG) Training Days 2010, which will be held February 16-18, 2010, at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado.

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Being Critical is Easier Than Being Creative

dmarx — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:54:00 -0400

I have learned in life in general and in software development in particular that it is far easier to be critical of a proposed idea than it is to be creative in coming up with a new or different idea. We see this in politics all the time when one ideological side seems to be better at attacking the other side than at coming up with real and creative solutions of their own.

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Impact of Demise of GeoCities on Online Software Development References

dmarx — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:05:00 -0400

On 9 July 2009, I received an e-mail message from Yahoo! GeoCities stating, "GeoCities is closing." I received these because I have had, for many years, a simple static homepage on Geocities (http://geocities.com/Colosseum/Field/7217/SW/index.html or http://geocities.com/dustinmarx/). I did not provide a link to it because, two weeks from today on 26 October 2009, that page will no longer be accessible.

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Lists of Popular Software Development Blogs

dmarx — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:57:00 -0400

There seem to be all kinds of lists of top software development and technical blogs. On the one hand, this does not matter that much to me because of the existence of powerful search engines such as Google and powerful development-specific aggregation sites such DZone. Search engines allow me to find an answer to a particular problem I am facing and don't limit me to blogs.

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Firsthand Frustration with Interface Inaccessiblity

dmarx — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:00:00 -0400

Most of us in the software development business are probably at least aware of accessibility issues associated with software development (particularly user interface development). However, I find that I usually understand the need for something better when I experience the need myself.

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RMOUG: Beware Triggers and DBA Code of Ethics

dmarx — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:20:00 -0400

The Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG) is well-known in the Oracle database administrator community.

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Common Debugging Steps Articulated

dmarx — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 17:25:00 -0400

In a relatively recent blog post, I discussed why I believe that more software developers should write blogs. In that post, I mentioned that I believe that some developers do not write blogs because they feel they have nothing new to add. A blog post I recently read illustrates how even a blog post on "old news" (debugging in this case) can be a useful addition to the blogosphere.

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Java API Documentation: A Software Development Community Contributor

dmarx — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 09:42:00 -0400

For those of us who regularly write code in Java or a JVM-hosted language (Groovy, JRuby, Jython, etc.), the Java Platform API documentation is a very valuable resource. In fact, it is one of the resources I most frequently access in my Java development. However, the Java API documentation's value is not limited to JVM-based development.

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You Might Be a Programmer If...

dmarx — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:16:00 -0400

You might be a programmer/software developer/software engineer if...

1) you are primarily offended by the use of goto when someone tells you to go to Hell.

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Beware Software Management Overreaction

dmarx — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:34:00 -0400

One of the most sinking feelings one can feel in software development occurs when a client or management overreacts to some crisis or mistake with onerous new requirements, procedures, and processes. In this blog post, I look at why those in authority sometimes do overreact, describe why overreaction can be dangerous and costly, and outline some ideas regarding how to reduce or prevent overreaction.

Why Do People Overreact in Software Management?

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