General Commentary – Page 12 – Software and Other Shenanigans

Why I don’t work from home

Mar 102013

When Marissa Mayer ended Yahoo’s work from home policy, the Internet went nuts, and stayed nuts for days, which is a pretty long time for Internet nuttery. There’s been all sorts of ~~random talk~~…um….~~personal annecdotes~~…er….”news articles” have sprung up discussing this very important issue of 1 specific company’s policies. It’s almost as if people think that Yahoo, great, shining beacon of largely irrelevant and nobody cares anymore, is a precursor to the whole tech industry (something it hasn’t been in a long while). Some people have at least either tried to either limit their discussion to Yahoo’s particular situation, or moved everything to a broader discussion of telecommuting in general. I’m going to focus on why I personally don’t like to telecommute if I don’t have to. Continue reading »

Maybe one day Google will finally get mobile

General Commentary, Shenanigans 1 Response »

Feb 122013

Originally when I cooked up this idea, it was going to be all about how Google didn’t really get mobile, and how they were getting sidetracked by Android. I still think Android is more of a distraction than Google shining at mobile, but I do think they’re at least starting to understand what they need to do to continue to be successful and relevant as people leave the computers at their desks and turn more to phones and tablets. Continue reading »

Why I don’t believe in a “happy medium”

General Commentary No Responses »

Feb 012013

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti “happy medium”. After all, who could be against a magical mythical scenario that has all the advantages of the other options and none of their disadvantages? I’m also for unicorns, flying cars, making a trillion dollars (after taxes) in salary, peace in the Middle East, and calm, tempered, well-reasoned, rational political discourse – but those aren’t real either. The thing about “happy mediums” you have to remember is that they don’t exist, therefore you can never hit them. Continue reading »

Programming resolutions

General Commentary, Work No Responses »

Jan 182013

I was going to write something about the 1 or 2 tricks I’ve learned about trying to wrap your head around large codebases, but the last few months at work have pretty much made it clear to me I know nothing about knowing things, so that one’s pretty much in the scrap heap at this point. My very first post tried to capture that sense of being overwhelmed and in over your head when you start a new job, and it turns out it’s pretty easy to keep that sensation alive 6 months in. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that I know less about what I’m doing now than I did when I started. Continue reading »

With documentation that’s easier and (theoretically) better for all

General Commentary, Work 5 Responses »

Oct 292012

I’m sure there are lots of ways to handle documenting things (design documents, release notes, requirements, etc.) in a software development environment, but I’ve only ever seen 2: a corporate wiki, and something from Microsoft (I forget the name of it, all I really remember is that it had a check out/check in model, and all the developers thought sucked. I’ll just call this option “the Microsoft option” for lack of something more accurate). From what I’ve seen, wikis have a lot of promise, and do a great job, but to live up to their full promise they still require an anal retentive developer dedicated to periodically reviewing and fixing the documentation for anything they actually deal with on a day-by-day basis. Continue reading »

Why can’t all this stuff just get along?

General Commentary, Work 7 Responses »

Oct 042012

We all have our own personal Kryptonite, that little something you encounter as part of your job that just never seems to go right no matter what you do. For me, that Krytonite is server configuration. It doesn’t matter how clear you make the how-to directions, I will find a way to fail at it no matter how hard I try to get it right on the very first time. It’s like magic, or karma, or some other-worldly force that’s determined I fail when trying to set up any new environment. Continue reading »

What’s in your box?

General Commentary, Work No Responses »

Sep 112012

For the first time in my professional career, I’ve found myself working without any type of laptop. I can still work from home on my own machine, but given how easy it is to telecommute as a software developer, it struck me as odd that my work machine would be just a desktop. It led me to think about just what the reasons could be that I have a desktop for working, and why everywhere else I worked chose to make sure that I had a laptop capable of doing development work, or at the least could remote desktop into my development machine. Continue reading »

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