SEP Alumni

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 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 […]

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 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 […]

*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: 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, […]

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 […]

What is software development? When we say software we typically mean a software product to sell to a market or a system to increase productivity. In both cases, doesn’t the customer have some idea of the cost and potential value before the project is initiated? If the initial estimated cost versus the expected value (Rate […]

Discussions with client representatives concerning hourly rates can be frustrating. The belief that an hour of any person’s (or supplier’s) time is exactly the same as any other is like comparing software engineering services to purchasing a case of creamed corn. Even this focus: Real Hourly Cost = Total Work Done/Hours to Do It …Doesn’t […]