Helltime for July 13
Announcer: Now for quick hits and commentary on software development topics from around the web, the EIP web-ring brings you the stigmatized spawn of a refactory, MoffDub, and Helltime!
- N+1.org contributor Craig Stuntz advises that we design crash-only software; instead of rarely-used error handling and recovery code, design your program to be tolerant of abrupt termination.
Though absurd at first blush, the idea is not totally foreign. If you can’t beat them, join them. OpenOffice.org‘s applications can routinely recover your documents if you have to do a hard power-off. Firefox remembers your session so you can resume from where you left off.
What application, you may ask, is not crash-only? You needn’t look too far: when Windows is shutting down, humble Notepad won’t go away until you save your unsaved work.
- On the Making Good Software blog, Alberto Gutierrez lists the top 5 non-technical errors committed by us programmers: lack of discipline, big ego, bad communicator, lack of customer attention, and lack of priorities.
The only one I would take issue with is having a big ego. Just like rappers have to believe that they are the best in the world, I think programmers also have to have that attitude at least some of the time; otherwise, why are you writing code if you don’t think you’re the best person for the job? Like Alberto says, you have to be aware of your big ego so you can scale it back when it comes time for, say, code reviews and detaching yourself from your code.
- Speaking of egos, Nicolas Frankel has a featured article on Architect Zone describing what happens when not only the programmers but the architects aren’t aware of their inflating egos. The hubris spoken of here is the gall some have to force unproven technologies on an unsuspecting development team in order to enhance your resume.
First, I think this can be avoided if you make your architects write code in the bed they’ve made. Second, isn’t a much more dangerous hubris the kind that transcends established practice and technology, the kind that says “this is the way we’ve always done it”, the stuff from which religious flame wars are made?
Beware, my friends. I’m the ego-driven architect Homeland Security warned you about.
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