On Professional References

Warren Harrison's "From the Editor" column in this month's IEEE Software reminds to manage professional references ongoingly, not just when you immediately need them. Also, the useful exercise of taking stock of what kind of references you're developing versus what kind you'd like to be developing. "Make an inventory of the qualities you'd like to showcase, then regularly evaluate your participation in terms of this list."

March DDJ

Why was the March issue of Doctor Dobb's Journal so thin?

I'm disappointed.

On gathering requirements

This Dilbert cartoon summed up the critical problem with so many projects.

SmartDraw for diagrams

I often need to draw diagrams, and while napkin and whiteboard scribbles are best, sometimes it's necessary to produce something more professional looking, or at least more editable.

And so my latest favorite tool is SmartDraw, which I find more usable than Visio.

Are you making a good first impression?

What impression does your website give in the first 50 milliseconds ?

Is the computing profession hurting you?

Is your computing profession hurting you?

How to keep your job

How to Keep your Job, the most interesting read I've had so far this year, professionally. This relates to the excellent advice a friend of mine once gave me: keep reading code. Read code every day.

Would you like to be a Senior Instructional Technologist?

Maybe you'd like to be a Senior Instructional Technologist at Yale University .

401K

In addition to this consultant-programmer gig, I also work part time for Unicon. Signed up for their 401K plan. This saving dollars pre-tax and before I get to spend them seems like a perfect idea. I'm splitting 15% of that income source between T. Rowe Price Retirement Series 2040 and Oppenheimer Small/MidCap Value. We'll see how it does. Or, preferably, not -- I'd like to treat this as a fire-and-forget-it kind of decision. I'll work on the Java, someone else can work on the fund allocation...

On Defining the Problem

When the customers present ideas that need system solutions, engineers have an ethical and professional obligation to help them define and simplify their problem. You must build the best solution to the customer's problem, even if the customer does not yet understand how to ask for it.

From Taking Software Requirements Creation from Folklore to Analysis Larry Bernstein, Stevens Institute of Technology, ACM SIGSOFT SEN Sept 2005 p 4.