SEP has asked us to write about the tools of our trade. I’m a software engineer at a decently-sized software engineering company, so it’s pretty clear that I have several tools in my programming toolbox. Things like Sublime Text for scripting, DiffMerge for file diffs, Stackoverflow for Q&A and community, and even music for getting in the zone. But there’s one tool I […]
The Design Eye — Tool of the Designer Trade
One of the innate talents of a good designer in any design industry is having a good eye for design. But what does it mean to have a good eye for design? It’s one of those things that is hard to put into words. It’s part instinct that has been developed based on years of […]
Where is the iOS app industry headed?
I’m worried about the iOS app industry. Not because I see signs of Apple dying, but because I know how technology fads go. That, and because I’ve worked on almost nothing but iOS apps the past few years. I don’t want my domain of “expertise” to fizzle out over the next few years. Technology fads […]
Android Studio – Not Ready for Primetime
Android Studio is a new IDE that Google has released into Early Access Preview. It is based on the popular IntelliJ editor; the existing development environment relied on an Eclipse plugin. This was really exciting news for SEP engineers that have done Android development. In addition to more the powerful refactoring tools that come with […]
Installing Open Source Android Libraries with Gradle and Android Studio
Android recently started advising developers to use Gradle as their build system for new projects. I don’t really keep up-to-date on the Java ecosystem – and I prefer working in dynamic languages – so I didn’t even really know what a “build system” constituted. All I could think about was nightmares from writing Makefiles in […]
“Have It Your Way” Software
Have It Your Way is an iconic slogan from Burger King. Letting the customer pick and chose whatever toppings and condiments they want works really great when you are making burgers. Customization is good for the customer and the business. If BK only sold hamburgers with pickles, they would lose the business of anyone who […]
Beware of Group Projects
*This post is being manually syndicated from my external blog, [Larry Price And The Endless Cup of Coffee](https://larryprice.github.com), as part of the Back-to-School 2013 SEP Blog Battle.* Relying on other people is hard. I’ve always found it difficult to understand that other people aren’t me. Don’t get me wrong, working with others can be really […]
Beware of the Simple Things
Beware of the Simple Things: 3 Flags to Look Out for in Domains Your new client already has a requirements document, and has been doing work in the domain for 10 years. They use simple concepts: reports, studies, projects, updates, project IDs, owners. They ‘just’ want to transfer their Access data into a relational database, […]
Beware of Meta- programming…
A few Google searches will turn up many different conversations about Metaprogramming…covering the good, the bad, and the beautifully elegant implementations. (I recommend using “-ruby” to filter out all of the tutorials and books about Ruby’s implementation of Metaprogramming. For the record, this post is not about Ruby, at all.) Metaprogramming, as I’m using the […]
