Software & Engineering

How to Decide if you Should Write a Program

coliveira — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:28:23 +0000

As a developer, have you ever wondered if a program needs to be written? With the library of existing programs growing larger than ever, it is sometimes difficult to justify the need to write still another one. Especially when the need for a program may not be well understood in principle. Like anyone that need to [...]

How to measure productivity for developers?

coliveira — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:41:27 +0000

One of the big concerns of companies that employ software engineers has been how to measure the productivity of these people. From a business standpoint, the idea is that one should find ways to maximize the work done by their employees. However, it is difficult to evaluate how this maximization process would happen if no [...]

Is Writing a Big App the Best Way to Win?

coliveira — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:44:29 +0000

Software entrepreneurs constantly make the mistake to equate number of features in software with a better chance of dominance in the market. And, if one look at how the market works, there is some justification for this thinking: if a software has a large number of features, then it can attract a larger user base. [...]

Benefits of studying your own code

coliveira — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:26:07 +0000

Lest night, I was reading an interview by Ken Thompson, the inventor of UNIX, on the book “Coders at Work“. At one point of the interview, he mentions that he considered himself a better programmer before he was 35. The main reason according to him is that he knew every line of code that he had ever written, from [...]

Day 11: Understand the Lower Layers of the System

coliveira — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 19:35:24 +0000

Hi, this is the 11th part of a series of posts on 30 tips to becoming a better developer. If you would like to keep up to date with the topics that I am covering, just check the main post. As software developers, we enjoy thinking of a system in as higher level [...]

Why C++ will not die

coliveira — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:54:08 +0000

If you work with programming, from time to time you will see articles talking about the inevitable downfall of C++ as a main programming language. Some people go as far as to say that C++ is even harmful to your career and that you should avoid using it whenever possible. Despite the reasons why some people [...]

Using Firebug to Edit HTML

coliveira — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:14:59 +0000

Some time ago I started playing with Firebug, a Firefox extension, that provides tools for editing and debugging html and Javascript. It is a tool that I recommend to anyone interested in creating web content. The core of the extension is a window that allows one to inspect the HTML, CSS, and Javascript in a web [...]

First Impressions of Google Wave

coliveira — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:46:57 +0000

Google wave was introduced in the last I/O conference (2009) by Google as a new platform for communication. A platform using web 2.0 concepts, and providing an array of features that has not been available in other platforms. I received an invitation to use Google wave and decided to take a quick look. Although some of [...]

How to Create a Duplicate Row in Oracle

coliveira — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 00:12:40 +0000

When working with Oracle databases, it is sometimes interesting to create a duplicate row of a table. Most of the times this happens when I am testing something on an application and need to tweak one of the entries in a table. There is a standard SQL trick to duplicate elements of a table that can [...]

Viewing PDFs with a Chrome Extension

coliveira — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 15:27:04 +0000

Since its release, Chrome has provided several ways to improve user experience on the web, including an easy-to-use interface, short start up times, and advanced features for developers. One of the features that has made life even easier for users is the introduction of extensions to the platform. With extensions, Chrome is now able to add [...]