Talk about Technologies, Software Architecture and Management

Blog improvements

WordPress 2.5 has been released and I have updated my blog engine to use this version. Migration is now finalized: styles, theme, features are now in sync. From what I can see, everything is running fine and it appears to be faster, but if you encounter any problems, please let me know. You now can associate Gravatar with your email address and it will appear next to all your comments. Gravatar is a free service which is now incorporated into WordPress, you can create association by visiting web-site above.

By Serguei Dosyukov, ago

Big Island of Hawaii

As I have mentioned earlier, during the spring break we have visited the next island of Hawaii – Big Island. We spent 10 days overall there. I think it is a gold middle for how much to spend there – it is not to short, you have enough time to visit places and just to spend time on the beach. Well, finding a good beach could be a problem, since there is not to many of them in proximity from Kona where we rented a condo. One I like most – the Hapuna Beach – is about an hour drive one way… But if you are to spend time by the ocean, it worth it. Some photos are available here. Another Read more

By Serguei Dosyukov, ago

“More then 3.2M developers use CodeGear tools”

It is on front page of CodeGear web-site – “More then 3.2M developers use CodeGear tools worldwide“. Is it a big number? yes. Is is significant number? well, this is the number of developers for ALL CG tools (unique license/developer, I assume, for JBuilder, Delphi, 3rdRail, Delphi for PHP, etc – total of 11 main tools). I do not know what average distribution is right now, but I would think that we can account 1/3 for Delphi family tools. Wow! 1M+ of us around the world.

By Serguei Dosyukov, ago

“One fish per family” or “family practices”

Last week coming from vacation at Hawaii, I have had an amazing experience!!! Oh, Deja vu… Being born and raised in Russia, I have experienced how during recession certain food items could be limited in access. Limited quantities per month for some products which might have shortage (I do not think it was really the case, but… there were times like that). You would get a special coupon for sugar, meat, butter, etc. Yes, it applies to a “favorite drink” too, but it was more of currency then a “dietary” product. Well, I do not know was it me being Russian in Korean supermarket, very special and popular fish (who would imagine that about type of flatfish!!!), sale prices, or something else… We Read more

By Serguei Dosyukov, ago

Object-Oriented Programming

Object-Oriented Programming or OOP is the concept which you can find almost everywhere today. It is required for understanding of many modern programming languages. As a result, you would find it very often as a required skill when reading job postings. Being introduced back in 1970s as part of SIMULA language, OOP still remains somewhat of the mystery. Question then raised – why OOP is not taught as a primary discipline for Computer Science program? (wikipedia, in Java, in C, some course papers (1), (2)) Lets look at some of the leading Universities in US for Fall/Spring 2007: Princenton Department of CS – Courses– only course COS441 mentions anything about OO languages, and not even OOP Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences – Courses – 3 Read more

By Serguei Dosyukov, ago

Make the Project Management simple

Now that we have established the differences between Product and Project management, we can look at them from a practical point of view. Let’s start with Project Management. Bottom line – if you feel straggle with the subject, then it is time to step back and look at “why” and “what” makes it complex. It usually comes down to complexity in the project definition, uncertainty of what has to be done, idealistic approach, unclear time-line or simply mismanaging. To succeed, a project should have clearly defined goals, realistic time-line expectations, proper budget and properly allocated resources. When something goes wrong, it usually falls in the above categories. Let’s consider the following: Keep the project simple. If you feel that project really includes several standalone parts, then it is Read more

By Serguei Dosyukov, ago