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Entries Tagged as 'Programming'

What’s In a Name? Programmers and Such

July 3rd, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips We consider what the world calls “computer programmers” these days. Developers. That is what we seem to call computer programmers these days. I work in a building with perhaps a hundred developers. “Are you a developer?” people ask me. Sigh. The trouble is, these developers are not developers because they aren’t developing […]

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Tags: Communication · Programming · Word

The Good Hackers

January 19th, 2017 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips The original hackers were the good guys. Some of today’s hackers still are. Nintendo recently brought back a handful of old video games in a clever packages called the NES Classic Edition. They sold a boat-load of them. The trouble is, you can’t add any games to it. Enter good-old hackers who […]

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Tags: Customer · Fun · General Systems Thinking · Programming

Programming Without Programmers—the Holy Grail

December 19th, 2016 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Those who don’t program still seek the Holy Grail of business: the ability to flush programmers from their lives. Google recently launched its App Maker. Its a tool kit that allows persons who don’t know how to program to write programs. Well, sort of. I guess Google’s product, similar to other similar […]

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Tags: Adults · Programming · Technology

Cloud-Based Development and Risk

September 26th, 2016 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips What could possibly go wrong with moving all your development to the cloud? At least ask the question. Programmers are running to cloud-based integrated development environments (IDEs). Once again, consumers run away from bad services, in this case the IT department, and towards better services, in this case cloud providers. This comes […]

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Tags: Programming · Risk

Engineering the Software versus Banging Out the Code

April 18th, 2016 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips There are major differences between engineering systems and “just doing it.” The consequences are both obvious and predicted. For at least 25 years, I have heard and seen in action the mantra of “good enough software.” Get a partial solution, ship it, improve it. Great stuff. Except time has shown that the […]

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Tags: Engineering · Programming · Systems

The Folly of Stack Programming and Developing

April 7th, 2016 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips When you rely upon things from other people, you are sometimes greatly disappointed. This holds for programming computers. Are you a “full-stack developer?” Do you argue about what a full-stack developer is? Have you been asked, “Given this problem, what stack would you use?” Sigh. Since the pre-historic times of computer programming, […]

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Tags: Analysis · Programming · Risk · Systems

Software Engineers and Software Engineering

March 17th, 2016 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Being a computer programmer does not make me a software engineer. Deep sigh before I begin. This is yet another post borne of frustration in talking with recruiters and hiring managers. Now that the sigh is out of the way. A computer programmer is not a software engineer. There. Wrote that bit. […]

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Tags: Computing · Engineering · Programming · Work

Software Developers

September 7th, 2015 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips This is yet another job title that is constantly misused by recruiters. Software Developer: another stupid job title that reveals the ignorance of those trying to hire people. Yes, I am a software developer. No I don’t have ten years Java programming experience. Are you trying to hire a programmer or a […]

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Tags: Communication · Programming · Work

Warmware

July 23rd, 2015 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips A little-publicized factor in the computing world is that to understand something, you have to find someone, i.e., a warm body. Back in the dark ages of computing, I wrote software in a language called FORTRAN. We used FORTRAN code that had been written the pre-dark ages by a group of people […]

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Tags: Communication · Engineering · People · Programming

How to Build a Secure Computer Voting Machine

May 18th, 2015 · No Comments

by Dwayne Phillips Want computer voting? Want it to be secure? Here is how to do it. Just about everyone in America today votes on some sort of computer. Now and then, someone writes a story about how someone discovered that their computerized voting machines are insecure and easily subject to election fraud. Here is […]

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Tags: Competence · Computing · Programming · Technology