Developing Developer Skills

Things change quickly in the world of software development. I started my career writing in Fortran 77. I stayed fairly abreast of languages until C++ and Java. I wandered by the Pragmatic Bookshelf to see what’s new. Languages/Frameworks I’ve barely heard...
Skills for Software Smokejumpers

Skills for Software Smokejumpers

©2007 Don Gray Do you know about smokejumpers? They’re brave, self-sufficient firefighters who parachute into remote areas wearing eighty pounds of gear and ready to fight a forest fire. If the jump goes well, they land safely. After extinguishing the fire, they...

Context is Everything

Today I had the opportunity to remember that “context is everything”. Hurricane Frances continues her slow crawl up the eastern United States. It started raining here in North Carolina yesterday (Tuesday 2004.09.07). This morning my radio crackled with...

Learning to Change

In Changing Quicker we looked at reducing or removing system delays to reduce the time delay between realizing a change needs to be made, and when the change’s effects occur. Another way to change quicker involves learning to change. Learning is a process that...