“We have nothing that is really our own; we hold everything as a loan.” ― Nicolas Poussin In the previous installment of this series, I explained why many software companies attract charlatans instead of great developers. I summarized the problem by postulating the first rule of hiring great software developers: To be able to attract […] The post How To Attract Great Software Developers, Part II: The Natural Habitat appeared first on Approxion.| Approxion
“Time is relative; its only worth depends upon what we do as it is passing.” ― Albert Einstein Different trades and professions have their favorite units of measurement. For astronomers it’s light years, for farmers it’s acres, and inches for carpenters. For us systems programmers it’s clearly milliseconds. Images from a video camera running at […] The post How Long Is A Millisecond? appeared first on Approxion.| Approxion
“Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery In this day and age, especially in large corporations, you can find a special breed of software developers who just can’t KISS. For every problem, even the simplest, they dream up […] The post People Patterns In Software Development: The Major Tom appeared first on Approxion.| Approxion
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“Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the energy you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way” — Albert Einstein These days, almost every software company is looking for software developers. Not just any software developers, mind you, it’s great […] The post How To Attract Great Software Developers, Part I: The Man In The Mirror appeared first on Approxion.| Approxion
“Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful.” — John C. Maxwell Ah, static class members! They pop up in every C++ project. In most cases, however, their use is not justified. I try to avoid static members as much as possible, and so should you. Here’s why. Let’s start by revisiting […] The post Avoid Static Class Members As Much As You Can appeared first on Approxion.| Approxion
“Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.” — Calvin Coolidge Software development has always been a rich source of religious wars: emacs vs. vi, tabs vs. spaces, brace placement. Where do I stand regarding “pull requests” vs. “trunk-based” development? Even though it looks like the really hip developers opt for […] The post 10 Rules For Working Successfully With Pull Requests appeared first on Approxion.| Approxion
“Under observation, we act less free, which means we effectively are less free.” ― Edward Snowden Imagine a distributed surveillance system where recorded video files are uploaded to a central server at regular intervalls. Due to limitations of the transport protocol, video files must be split up in chunks and no chunk may exceed 1 […] The post Bug Hunting Adventures #16: Lame Surveillance appeared first on Approxion.| Approxion
“A good workman is known by his tools” — proverb The process of getting admin rights as a corporate software developer is definitely on a spectrum. Over the last 20+ years, I’ve written code for more than ten companies and boy, do their policies differ! In one case, I had full admin rights from day […] The post Do They Treat You Like A Superuser? appeared first on Approxion.| Approxion
Both, non-painting painters and non-painters procrastinate and don't get their job done. The difference is that the former may be cured, while all hope for the latter is lost.| Approxion