Most Popular
1500 questions
287
votes
39 answers
Why don't all companies buy developers the best hardware?
I must be missing something.
The cost of employing a programmer in my area is $50 to $100 an hour. A top end machine is only $3,000, so the cost of buying a truly great computer every three years comes to $0.50/hour. ($3000/(150 wks * 40…
Eric Wilson
- 12,071
283
votes
22 answers
Leaving intentional bugs in code for testers to find
We don't do this at our firm, but one of my friends says that his project manager asked every developer to add intentional bugs just before the product goes to QA. This is how it works:
Just before the product goes to QA, the development team adds…
Krishnabhadra
- 2,450
283
votes
6 answers
Choosing between Single or multiple projects in a git repository?
In a git environment, where we have modularized most projects, we're facing the one project per repository or multiple projects per repository design issue. Let's consider a modularized project:
myProject/
+-- gui
+-- core
+-- api
+--…
Johan Sjöberg
- 3,017
278
votes
25 answers
How do you know you're writing good code?
I love programming. I've been messing around with code since I was a kid. I never went the professional route, but I have coded several in-house applications for various employers, including a project I got roped into where I built an internal…
Jim
- 1,997
276
votes
14 answers
Should we avoid object creation in Java?
I was told by a colleague that in Java object creation is the most expensive operation you could perform. So I can only conclude to create as few objects as possible.
This seems somewhat to defeat the purpose of object oriented programming. If we…
Slamice
- 2,657
- 3
- 15
- 10
275
votes
17 answers
Why have private fields, isn't protected enough?
Is the visibility private of class fields/properties/attributes useful? In OOP, sooner or later, you are going to make a subclass of a class and in that case, it is good to understand and be able to modify the implementation completely.
One of the…
Adam Libuša
- 2,067
272
votes
10 answers
Should images be stored in a git repository?
For a distributed team that uses Git and GitHub as version control, should images also be stored in the git repository?
The images in question are small/medium-sized web-friendly images. For the most part, the images won't be changed. The folder…
spong
- 9,421
266
votes
21 answers
Are `break` and `continue` bad programming practices?
My boss keeps mentioning nonchalantly that bad programmers use break and continue in loops.
I use them all the time because they make sense; let me show you the inspiration:
function verify(object) {
if (object->value < 0) return false;
if…
Mikhail
- 367
265
votes
33 answers
How do you tell if advice from a senior developer is bad?
Recently, I started my first job as a junior developer and I have a more senior developer in charge of mentoring me in this small company. However, there are several times when he would give me advice on things that I just couldn't agree with (it…
learnjourney
- 301
264
votes
22 answers
How are globals any different from a database?
I just ran across this old question asking what's so evil about global state, and the top-voted, accepted answer asserts that you can't trust any code that works with global variables, because some other code somewhere else might come along and…
Mason Wheeler
- 82,789
262
votes
7 answers
What does the Spring framework do? Should I use it? Why or why not?
So, I'm starting a brand-new project in Java, and am considering using Spring. Why am I considering Spring? Because lots of people tell me I should use Spring! Seriously, any time I've tried to get people to explain what exactly Spring is or what…
sangfroid
- 3,219
257
votes
137 answers
Perks for new programmers
I intend on hiring 2-3 junior programmers right out of college. Aside from cash, what is the most important perk for a young programmer? Is it games at work? I want to be creative... I want some good ideas
Autobyte
255
votes
33 answers
How can I deal with the cargo-cult programming attitude?
I have some computer science students in a compulsory introductory programming course who see a programming language as a set of magic spells, which must be cast in order to achieve some effect (instead of seeing it as a flexible medium for…
Aivar
- 301
251
votes
11 answers
Why do many exception messages not contain useful details?
It seems there is a certain amount of agreement that exception messages should contain useful details.
Why is it that many common exceptions from system components do not contain useful details?
A few examples:
.NET List index access…
Martin Ba
- 7,608
251
votes
16 answers
What's wrong with comments that explain complex code?
A lot of people claim that "comments should explain 'why', but not 'how'". Others say that "code should be self-documenting" and comments should be scarce. Robert C. Martin claims that (rephrased to my own words) often "comments are apologies for…
Aviv Cohn
- 21,388