December 2007

Code Size in Software Projects

December 27, 2007

In a recent post, Steve Yegge talked about a software game he had written and how the code size (500,000 lines of code) had become too big for him to manage. He had previously written the application in Java, and now has decided to rewrite the application in Rhino to reduce the code size to […]

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2007 – The Best and Worst Books I Read

December 24, 2007

I read around 65 non-fiction books in 2007. Here are the lists for the best and worst books I read. Some of them may have been published prior to 2007, but the best books seldom get outdated and the worst never get better over time. Best books I read in 2007 The No Asshole Rule, by Robert […]

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Delegation and Follow-up

December 16, 2007

A good manager must learn to delegate. By doing so, he can focus his time on activities which others cannot do as well as he can. Since a manager’s time is costly, he should delegate repetitive activities to less expensive resources, and spend more time on tasks that will contribute to better organizational results and […]

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DataModel and ViewModel

December 15, 2007

Recently in a conversation with a friend, he described a problem with an algorithm he was writing for displaying a calendar with appointment data. His original algorithm worked fine, but when faced with appointment conflicts because of multi-booking, he had to employ a 2-pass algorithm over the data so that he could display the information […]

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Pitfalls of Performance-Based Compensation

December 8, 2007

Performance-based compensation has a simple premise: Show better results, obtain greater rewards. Commission-based professions (like sales) are performance-based. It seems like a good idea to have the same principle applied to all jobs within a company. Unfortunately, there are many disadvantages and risks in such an approach. First, measuring performance is not an easy task. […]

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Riddles and Quiz in Interviews

December 8, 2007

Try solving the puzzle below. The answer and an explanation of how to solve the generic version of the problem can be found in this article by Jack Wert. You have 9 coins, one of which is heavier than the rest. You are provided a weighing scale. What is the least number of weighings required […]

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The Joy of Setting Up a Java Framework

December 2, 2007

Joy? Actually, no. Unfortunately, Java is becoming a victim of too much innovation. Anyone doing web development using a Java-based framework is faced with an abundance of choices and very little guidance and help from the innovators. Here, take a look at these lists: Apache projects, web frameworks, persistence solutions, web servers, IDEs, etc. What […]

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Communicating Software Estimates

December 2, 2007

In my last post, I had written about the conflict over software estimates between the people running the business and the people writing the software. I mentioned that most projects are likely to be underestimated in the first place and further pressure from the business side only makes things worse. How can engineers get business […]

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