June 2008

Web List Functionality

June 22, 2008

Initial implementations of lists in a web application are generally very simple. As the list grows in size, more functionality is required. Here is an attempt at compiling the major functional requirements of a list. You may not use many of these functions, but it is useful to know what is possible. Searching There should […]

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Why Leadership?

June 17, 2008

The powers-that-be of the cricketing world have finally come to their senses and decided to allow players to challenge an umpire’s decision. The umpire can now use slow motion replays, microphones and other technology to make a more accurate decision. For those unfamiliar with cricket, this is the culmination of events that were set forth […]

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Actionable Web Bookmarks

June 16, 2008

I have been using web bookmarks using various applications like del.icio.us, Yahoo Bookmarks and Google Bookmarks, as well as the built-in functionality within the browsers. Although all of them have good features, one important thing that is missing from them is the ability to tie actions to them. Here is what I would like to […]

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Pair Programming and Code Reviews

June 15, 2008

One simple definition of pair programming would be continuous code review. Instead of doing code reviews at definite intervals, one programmer continuously monitors the code written by his/her pair programmer. One could have yet other code reviewers in addition to the pair programmers, but in general, the principle stands. A single programmer producing code without […]

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Project Scope and Bug Density

June 9, 2008

One important consequence of bug reports is that they not only affect your schedule, but also conflict with your priorities. Release of product features is negotiable to some extent. A critical bug seldom is. You have to postpone much of your planned work until the bug fix is released. That step requires you to perform […]

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Teams and Disagreements

June 8, 2008

The common image that comes to mind when we talk about “teams” is a group of people that work jointly to achieve a particular objective. We think of charismatic leaders who take the team from vision to goal. Disagreements and arguments are often thought of in the context of dysfunctional teams, those that fail despite […]

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Vocabulary

June 2, 2008

I was chatting with my friend the other day and we got talking about vocabulary. In his case, he was interested in some short-term solutions to the problem because of an approaching exam. I didn’t have many ideas at that time, but later, I came up with some thoughts: Read political writing in blogs and […]

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To Learn C or Not

June 1, 2008

The past few weeks, I have been listening to the podcasts of Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood at stackoverflow.com. The discussions are perhaps not as informative as a Hanselminutes podcast, but they are definitely entertaining and cover many topics related to software development. Atwood has posted some of the discussed topics on Coding Horror. One […]

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