Posts by Mike Taber
Instructions? We do’n need no steenkin instructions.
Today I had a very unique experience. I was at a client site working to debug this multi-threaded test application they had written, when the HR director stopped by with a set of instructions for the phone. They had apparently changed all of the voicemail systems, so wanted to make sure everyone knew how to…
Read MoreHow to focus on quality
Focus on Quality. It sounds innocent enough. Just make sure you do everything perfectly, or at least as perfectly as you are able. If only it were as simple as that. I distinctly recall during my younger years as a developer, believing firmly that if software you wrote had bugs in it that you were…
Read MoreWhat do you mean it’s due Wednesday?
My “How to focus on quality” article took longer to get out the door than I thought. It’s been sitting there unfinished for the better part of a week. Late last week, I decided to talk with my CPA to get my corporate and personal taxes done. I’ve still got another month, but I suppose…
Read MoreDatabase Mistakes
Mike Gunderloy put together a great article for developer.com outlining “Ten of the Biggest Mistakes Developers Make With Databases”. It ties in pretty well with my Gatekeeper article, advocating a single point of control for database development within an application. Everything he mentioned, I myself have seen time and time again. The bottom line is…
Read MoreComing soon, Mike’s Bookshelf
I’m a firm believer that you should never stop learning. Perhaps that’s where my intense dislike of self-proclaimed experts comes from. That, or the fact that half the time I probably know more about the topic at hand than they do, and since I wouldn’t call myself an expert, how is it that they can?…
Read MoreQuality is not a feature
For the past several weekends, I have been entrenched in the truly terrible task of stripping wallpaper and getting the walls ready for painting. I’m probably about as far from being a violent person as you can be without actually being a pacifist, but were Jean-Michel Papillon still alive today, I’d probably beat him to…
Read MoreAnother “Milestone” completed
Well, Moon River Milestones v1.1.0 is out the door, and it’s time to turn our attentions towards a pair of other pressing matters. First, is the conversion of our website from the older and more venerable ASP code to C#.NET. “Why the change? Isn’t it good enough as is?” Well, not quite. Part of the…
Read MoreMilestones v1.1.0 will be released this weekend
It’s always nice to finish up something you’ve worked very hard on. This weekend will mark the completion of Moon River Milestones v1.1.0. A small milestone for Moon River, but a new milestone nonetheless. Testing revealed some rather embarrassing bugs, to be sure. For example, I recently added anchor links for the text descriptions of…
Read MoreMilestones v1.1.0 complete
Well, it’s done and testing is underway. So far, I’ve only found a couple of issues and they’re pretty minor. No sense in wasting time talking about them though. The time would be better spent on fixing them. I expect that the new version will be ready for all of our customers and live in…
Read MoreThe Gatekeeper
It’s fairly obvious that whenever you work on a development team, everyone fills different roles. This can sometimes make it difficult to evaluate the individual contributions of particular team members, especially when their roles overlap to a large degree. These roles vary from team to team, as do specific titles but most are essentially the…
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