Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Just about anyone can learn to program a computer. Not many people earn degrees in Computer Science. I first noticed the above statement in 1978 (yes, I am that old). Students were telling me how they loved to write computer programs. We were taught something called PL/I in those days. Then the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Praising the most successful education project in the history of man: the Raspberry Pi. Nobel Prize? Why not? Two years ago the Raspberry Pi was launched. 2.5 million units later, it is still going. Two years is a long time in technology—a very long time. (Wikipedia has a good article on the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Opposite of the conventional wisdom, there is a good reason to have your friends test your work. The conventional wisdom about testing software it to have someone who does not know you do it. That unknown person will dive into the software and try to find every little fault in it. They […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Stay connected to the people who work with you. It is that simple. There is a phrase that was kicked around a lot a few years back in the software field. The phrase was about going dark. That phrase meant that a programmer would stop talking to everyone else. You didn’t know […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes the best thing to do is put your seat in a chair, your hands on the keyboard, and type in all the data manually instead of writing software to do it. I experienced it at least half-a-dozen times in my 28 years in government: We need to track our inventory. Due […]

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by Dwayne Phillips How much oversight, process, testing, and any activity other than writing software should you do? The answer lies in the consequences of failure. Don’t let the quest for better destroy your software project. How much effort should you spend testing software? How much management oversight should software projects have? How much effort […]

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by Dwayne Phillips It seems that everyone is using an Agile process these days. There really isn’t anything new in Agile. And, in some cases, Agile can slow the delivery of software to users. What? Agile be slow? Yes, Agile processes can slow the delivery of software to users. Twenty years ago, I worked in […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Programming languages are relevant but not critical to software engineers, but recruiters at job fairs love this question. For the record, I list my languages. I have been going to job fairs recently trying to find a job. People claim they are looking for systems engineers, software engineers, and software systems engineers. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I often see claims that software systems will be secure, i.e., only authorized people will be able to see the information. Just as often I see cases where “secure” software systems are broken and the data are spilled onto the floor for all to see. Why? I believe it is a simple […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Universities report that cheating is prevalent in computer science classes. A closer look shows me that the universities are cheating the students by teaching them bad work habits. Computer science enrollment is high this year in universities. Cheating in universities is also on the rise. Universities are proclaiming that the cheating is […]

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