Category — Development

Development is a very task oriented profession. Everything can be broken down into small requirements or tasks that need to be finished to get meet the overall goal. In some projects you might have hundreds of different steps to complete before you are done, and keeping track of these can be critical to success.
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“If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.”
-Edsger Dijkstra

Testing is arguably the most important step in any software project and also one of the most neglected steps. In most cases, testing is missed because clients don’t realize the importance of it and aren’t willing to pay for, or take the time to have the developers test properly.

In a perfect world, code would be thoroughly tested before it ever goes into the wild, but this just isn’t possible. Here are a few tips and tricks on testing so your product will never be released without even a little bit of testing.
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A difficult, yet obvious, lesson to learn is that you need to know what you’re doing before you do it. Many developers just dive into a project without the proper planning or without fully understanding what it is that they need to get accomplished.

You might get a feeling of productivity because you’ve started coding, but what does it get you? What have you actually started to code? Chances are it’s not exactly what is required, and that means you’ve wasted your time. No matter how you cut it, wasting time is not productive.
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I don’t know about you but I personally work a lot better when I’m listening to music. I don’t know what it is but I can concentrate a lot easier and work a lot quicker when I’m listneing to my favourite tunes. The problem with most devevelopment jobs is that, unless you work from home, you’re constantly around co-workers and it would be rude to blast your music.

That is why it’s important to invest in a decent pair of headphones. Here are a few things you should look for when picking out your headphones:
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I’ve met, worked with or interviewed many “senior” developers, and it saddens me to say it, but most of them haven’t improved since the day they left school.

Time in the industry doesn’t make you any better at what you do, and it surely doesn’t make you worthy of the senior title.
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Management can be a tricky thing. Developing continuous improvement processes, input protocols, training procedures and a whole host of other things can be time consuming and difficult. And that’s when they actually work.

When it doesn’t though, you have to get at it again and try something else, taking up even more time and effort.
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This tip is something I learned watching my father growing up. He’s the Director of IT for the insurance division of one of the largest banks in North America, so I’m pretty sure he knows what he’s doing.

He was always a big advocate for spending time with his family, or at least being at home should anyone need him. To ensure that he could do this, he found a chunk of the day where he could be the most productive that wouldn’t take away from his time with anyone else.
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Problems are one of the few things we seem to never be in short supply of. Problem solvers, however, are more difficult to come by, and the reason for this is simple – most people don’t solve the real problem. They’ll come up with a short term patch and a clever spiel about how it’s the ultimate solution. Everyone then believes their hype and that’s that.

Two weeks, a month, or a year later the problem is back and twice as bad as it was before.
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Through my career, it’s easy to say that I’ve worked on hundreds of different projects for many different clients. Some for small companies with small budgets, small teams to get the work done and short timelines. Other projects are for large companies, with large teams and long timelines. The one connection between all of these projects is this: the documents can make them or break them.

Fear the docs. Fear what they can do to your project and your sanity.
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To a developer, their desk is like athelete’s equipment; vital to occupation. If a hockey players stick breaks because it’s quality is sub-par they could lose a game. The same goes to a developers desk, if the desk isn’t stocked with the correct equipment it could impair the developer in their work.

Here are 10 things that every developer should have at their desk.
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