Have you ever seen code that looked like the snippet here? public class Menagerie { private List _animals = new List(); public void AddAnimal(Animal animal) { _animals.Add(animal); } public void MakeNoise() { foreach (var animal in _animals) { if (animal is Cat) ((Cat)animal).Meow(); else if (animal is Dog) ((Dog)animal).Bark(); } } } You probably have…
C++ Inline Reaching back into my C++ days, a concept exists called “inline”. “Suggesting inline” is a concept where you tell the C++ compiler that you want to dispense with function call overhead and slam the code in question right into the code stream of the caller. (It’s a matter of suggesting because the compiler…
Cargo Cults and Angry Monkeys If you have never heard the term “Cargo Cult Programming“, it’s an it’s an excellent way to describe blindly following processes without understanding the theory behind them. The term originates from a story about aboriginal islanders during World War II. During the war, cargo planes regularly (and from their perspective,…
Expert Beginner Recap In my last post I introduced the term “Expert Beginner” to describe someone who has capped out in their learning at some sort of local maximum, convinced that the local is global. Expert Beginners are developers who do not understand enough of the big picture to understand that they aren’t actually experts….
Beyond the Dead Sea: When Good Software Groups Go Bad I recently posted what turned out to be a pretty popular post called “How to Keep Your Best Programmers,” in which I described what most skilled programmers tend to want in a job and why they leave if they don’t get it. Today, I’d like…
