The last couple of years more and more people have been moving towards Agile development. These techniques aren’t new, most we’re devised in the 80s or 90s. But finally these days programmers and (more importantly) business consultants, architects and clients have learned to love and embrace Agile development.Evolving requirementsIt has now become common knowledge that you can’t write down all the requirements before you start the project. These requirements have to be written down in an evolutionary matter. In short cycles/sprints we build pieces of the pro...

Recently I saw somebody asked a question in a forum, the question is "Which programming language should I learn first?". Then someone answered this question. His answer:Depends.To program in an expressive and powerful language: PythonTo get a website up quickly: PHPTo mingle with programmers who call themselves “rockstars”: Ruby.To really learn to program: C.To achieve enlightenment: Scheme.To feel depressed: SQLTo drop a chromosome: Microsoft Visual BasicTo get a guaranteed, mediocre, but well paying job writing financial applications in a cubicle under fluorescent lights: Ja...

When maintaining code using version control systems such as git, it is unavoidable that we need to rollback some wrong commits either due to bugs or temp code revert. In this case, rookie developers would be very nervous because they may get lost on what they should do to rollback their changes without affecting others, but to veteran developers, this is their routine work and they can show you different ways of doing that.In this post, we will introduce two major ones used frequently by developers.git resetgit revertWhat are their differences and corresponding use cases? We will discuss them ...

I got an email request to publish this article a few days ago.I was actually on the verge of moving the email to the trash when I noticed the first name of the author: Rand.For those of you not familiar with the Wheel of Time series, the main character’s name is Rand.I admit that it’s an embarrassing weak reason to respond to a strange email, but reading some 10,000 pages of a fantasy series obviously messes with your mind.Then again, it’s probably no stranger than Rand Mendoza wanting to publish his article on this blog to begin with.Anyways, enjoy…**...

Writing runnable code is the essential skill of a programmer, writing understandable comment is also a skill a programmer should acquire. There is some famous saying that bad comment is worth than no comment. Usually your code will be maintained by other people, if you provide them some difficult to understand or misguided comments, this will be nightmare to them. While at some other time, programmers may put some funny comments in their codes which may make others laugh. Today we share some comments which are full of humor.1. Send some warning to maintainer// // Dear maintainer...

What is the difference between Hacking and programming? One opinion I have heard expressed is that a hacker can put a lot of code together in a hurry but if a change is needed the code has to be completely rewritten. A programmer may take a little longer but if changes are needed they are more quickly and easily installed without the need for a complete rewrite. One source I heard attributed an observation like this to Maggie Johnson of Google. It rings true to me though. Hacking is usually described as “quick and dirty.” You though a bunch of code together and make it up as you go...

Macros are small but very powerful VBA programs in Microsoft Office software. They can help us complete some repeated tasks automatically. Today, I will show you one macro example which is to change the text color conditionally. The excel file has a work sheet which contains some records of request. I want to check the status of each request, if the status of a request is approved, the text color of the status should be green; if the status of a request is rejected, the text color of the status should be red; otherwise the text color of the status should be black. Here is the code for the mac...

Similarities:Java and C have same syntax operators.Difference—thinkingTwo paradigms:Java: Object oriented languageC: Structured languageDifferences: --SyntaxNo preprocessorJava does not include a preprocessor and does not define any analogs of the #define, #include, and #ifdef directives. Constant definitions are replaced with static final fields in Java. (See the java.lang.Math.PI field for an example.) Macro definitions are not available in Java, but advanced compiler technology and inlining has made them less useful. Java does not require an&nbs...