Collected web pages about Software Engineering.
Design
Why Should I Care What Color the Bikeshed Is? — Poul-Henning KampParkinson’s law of triviality is the argument that members of an organisation give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. In software engineering this is known as the bikeshed effect.
Programming style
A Guide to Naming Variables — Jacob GabrielsonSome good advice about variables naming. A good basis for your own coding conventions.
Comment Your &*☠# Code! — Nicolai ParlogYou think your code is so clean that it doesn’t need any comments? Or are your colleagues convinced that all comments are failures? Then this talk is for you!
(or read this article).
Speaking of which,
‘You are Not Expected to Understand This’: An Explainer on Unix’s Most Notorious Code Comment — David CasselHere’s all you wanted to know regarding the infamous UNIX comment:
/* You are not expected to understand this */
Miscellaneous
How many Microsoft employees does it take to change a lightbulb? — Eric LippertIt would only be like five lines of code! So why don’t you?
The reality is that even the smallest bug fix is one kind of change to the behaviour of the product, and all changes have similar costs and go through a similar process.
A Brief, Opinionated History of the API — Joshua BlochA fascinating talk discussing the 65 years history of APIs
(slides here).
8 Ways to Become a Better Coder — Esther SchindlerA few good tips to share with beginners, including my all-time favorite rant: “The code works” isn’t where you stop; it’s where you start.