As a software engineer, I was trained to think about the worst case. What is the worst possible performance for the algorithm used as specified in O(n), “big Oh“, notation? If you had formal education in computer science, you have been asked this question. Given that we are supposed to think about the worst case, [...]

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Every month, TIOBE updates their popular programming language list. I tend to ignore the monthly updates as longer term trends are normally more interesting. Last week, TIOBE released the updated yearly list for 2009. This is where you can see actual language trends. Much to my surprise, TIOBE announced that Google’s Go programming language was [...]

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A few weeks ago I talked about what a software engineer may do for design tasks. Today, we are going to take a step in a slightly different direction and look at how projects are planned and what a software engineer may do during planning. If you are just starting out as a software engineer, [...]

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Last week I mentioned receiving an email asking what a software engineer typically does. In that post, I talked about defending technical decisions. Today, I am continuing this thread by talking about design. In many companies and projects, design occurs before any development is allowed to start. This is considered “Big Design Up Front” or [...]

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Some days, you have to search the news and various sites to find something interesting to write about. Other days, the topic appears in your email. Today, there was a blog post and an email that just fit nicely together. The email asked what being a software engineer was like, and I will answer that [...]

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