Category Archives: Software Engineering

Developing Amidst Change

December 12th, 2007

Lately, I have been working as a lead developer on a software module for a reasonably sized project. What seemed to be a task that appeared to require no more than three weeks has turned into something that has spanned four months and may include an additional two months for the provision of integration support. […]

Know Your Nomenclature

November 25th, 2007

It’s very hard to discuss software engineering topics with respect to a given language when there’s some confusion between “function overloading” and “function overriding.”

Conveying Progress through Mockup Subchannels

October 15th, 2007

Kathy Sierra’s Don’t Make the Demo Look Done provides excellent advice for conveying the state of a project while presenting the project’s functionality. It also discusses advantages such as improved user feedback. With a very rough presentation, users will be comfortable providing inputs on significant system features rather than the particular fonts used in the […]

Shall, Should, and May

September 16th, 2007

The text of RFC2119, which describes the use of these phrases in system documentation, is presented here: Network Working Group Request for Comments: 2119 BCP: 14 Category: Best Current Practice S. Bradner Harvard University March 1997 — Status of this Memo — This document specifies an Internet Best Current Practices for the Internet Community, and […]

Secure Coding: Principles & Practices

August 28th, 2007

I read Graff and van Wyk’s Secure Coding: Principles & Practices to completion, but not because each page was more enlightening than the previous. I realized that the same themes and adages were being repeated constantly after having read half the book. Because it was pretty easy to get midway through the book, I decided […]