> When I first started, I thought it was all about skill,> about things like a deep understanding of the language,> the libraries, and the platform. Eventually, I realized> that a "good programmer" could always pick up this type of> knowledge as necessary. But what, then made them a good> programmer? It was personality traits that were>...

> He once had a> C macro containing a 'goto' called BOGO. He was told to> change it. He did. To OBONGO!Well it did make me chuckle. You have to give him that.

> > And really, what's the problem with using text anyway?> It> > seems like change for the sake of change.> > The comments for some of my code could benefit from> embedded diagrams and mathematical formula. While I could> embed (La)TeX in the existing text, for most readers today> that would be as cryptic as the code (or even more so).> > I...

I don't spend time trying to pinpoint bad developers. I know 'em when I see 'em.The common trait I see in the worst programmers is that they start coding without a plan. I don't mean necessarily a formal plan. I mean they don't have any idea how they are going to solve the problem at hand. They just code and code and meander around to a...

> - The programming language would not persist in a textual> format -- we are beyond the benefit of asciiSorry but I won't use it if there's not a plain text representation of the code. Every tool that I've ever used that didn't use text as it's canonical representation has created a maintenance nightmare. There is a lot to be said for being...

> This bit of the manifest is potentially troublesome:> > "Welcome changing requirements, even late in> development."> > Sometimes an apparently small change in requirements can> require an arbitrarily large change in the code that> addresses it. So in mathematics changing "min" to "max"> can mean starting again from the beginning (or even...

> "I'm one of the authors of the manifesto, so if I say> something 'weird,' they can't tell me I don't understand> Agile."> > This seems like a claim to privileged knowledge, similar> to a prophet claiming direct revelation...what we wrote is> authoritative with exception to whatever we think at the> moment, because we are the authors.That's...

> Correction: What I wanted to write is "adopting Agile> beyond the process" not "adapting".> For me it is strange to think of ideology in combination> with Agile. Agile methods such as Scrum did not pop up out> of an utopists mind.I think what the article is getting at is that Agile has become the new dogma. The problem isn't with Agile per...

Honestly, I think this a bunch of nonsense. Even with version control as it is used normally, Finding a specific set of versioned files is like searching for a needle in a haystack in moderate-sized or large-sized team. A version control repository without labeled versions is less valuable than one with labeled versions. Adding more versions to...

> And they are the most cost-efficient industry I> know about - what other industry lives off 5 to 7% profit?I used to work for wholesaler. They had an overall 0.5% margin.> I remember a very funny definition/comparison of> efficiency/effectiveness. Say you need to climb on a wall,> and you have a ladder. Climbing the ladder with the best>...

> To summarize: I don't advocate against iterations,> thorough refactoring, continuous integration, peer review,> or other techniques that agile methods promote. Only, my> understanding of agile methods (which may be wrong) is> that agile methods promote quickly rushing to code. Which> IMO isn't always the smartest thing to do. Rushing to code>...

> Now if we can just get an intrinsic IEEE 754 decimal type> ;-)Heresy! Everyone knows that real programmers use floating point for everything.

> From the myeclipse site:> > Be sure to the set the JRE home directory to the /java> folder under your WebSphere 6 install. You should not try> and configure any JDK here, WebSphere is known to run on a> heavily modified IBM JDK and running it with Sun's JDK,> JRockit, GCJ or other JDKs simply will not work. That page seems be confused about...

> What did IBM do to COBOL? They forked from ANSI early on.> IBM would turn java into a WebSphere extension; there> e will be IBM java and open java. The IBM jdk is already> different.In what way is the IBM JDK different and what is the IBM JDK exactly? I currently deploy Java to an IBM JVM and I build my code using a Sun compiler. It runs as...

> > Quality 1: quality is the result of a good process, not> of> > "heroic" individual efforts during a project. In a> > environment organized towards achieving it, quality> goes> > unnoticed. You only notice it when it's missing.> > There must be a word for something that is only visible> when it's not there? If not, there ought to be.'Hole'...