Archive for December, 2014
More effective interviews
David Smith over at baleful.net makes some interesting points about the length of most interviews: So mathematically, you will most likely get the highest confidence interval with: 1) Resume screen, 2) Phone interview, 3) In-person interviews 1-3. From the above, this should represent about 50% of the total causes,...
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IKEA instructions are the best
I don’t say it with a hint of sarcasm. I’ve put together a lot of furniture lately, and IKEA instructions are the only instructions that are consistently correct and unambiguous. In dozens of units, I’ve confirmed one case of an ambiguous step. But even in that case, I was...
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Free Practical Maya Programming with Python eBooks
Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone, Last week I asked my publisher if I could make the Practical Maya Programming with Python eBook totally free. I was told some good news and bad news. The bad news is, they won’t make it free. The good news is, my editor...
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We’re not so different, you and I
Ben Sandofsky wrote a post about why QA departments are still necessary, specifically with regards to mobile app development. He makes a good point: mobile apps create a distribution bottleneck that makes very rapid iteration impossible. I agree, and this is a good angle to think about. I would...
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Grabbing for good enough
Uncle Bob, who I consider my favorite programming writer, had a post a few weeks ago titled “Thorns around the Gold“. In it he describes how writing tests for your core functionality first can be harmful. Instead, Uncle Bob prefers to probe for “thorns” around the “gold” first. I...
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Qt Designer is harmful, exhibit A
Last week, iker j. de los mozos posted a Qt tutorial on his blog. The post was retweeted a number of times, so I figure people liked it. The post exemplifies what is wrong with the Qt Designer, and also how a little more investment in learning can pay...
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The QA Department Mindset
From this post by Rands, titled “The QA Mindset”: At the current gig, there’s no QA department. […] My concern is that the absence of QA is the absence of a champion for aspects of software development that everyone agrees are important, but often no one is willing to...