New in June - August

• Programming article: Too Many String Data Items—Why do OOP gurus shun objects?

• Methodology article: Stop Forcing Programmers to Concentrate—the downside of pair programming. UPDATED in July with comments by James Grenning

• Methodology article: Exceeding Initial Estimates Is a Waterfall Failure!—Comparing something with nothing.

• Two Language Curmudgeon pieces:
  • All Lists Are Ordered!—a common gaffe among writers on HTML.
  • "Exponential Increases" Growing Exponentially!—misuses of a precise mathematical term.

• UPDATED The Strange Case of Grace Murray Hopper—an inquiry about one of our pioneering giants.

Chicago ACM Presentation on Software Quality

Conrad Weisert made a presentation on software quality at the ACM Chicago Chapter's May 12 meeting. Why does modern software contain as much atrocious code as software of the 1960s? Why do courses and textbooks reinforce bad programming practices? Why do some managers think defect prevention is all there is to software quality? This presentation, with lively participation from the audience, answered some of those questions and described criteria for assessing software quality.

Conrad Weisert's Book Draws Praise

Object-Oriented Computation in C++ and Java is available now direct from Dorset House Publishing and book stores. Filling a gap in the OOP literature by focusing on elementary numeric objects and the design patterns that support them, this book will be useful not only to experienced programmers but also as a textbook for a computationally-oriented course in object-oriented programming.

Check the reviews on online book sellers.

New in March - May

• Methodology article: Results Are the Primary Concern—Emphasis on process can be harmful.

• Management article: What Ever Happened to Our Professional Positions?—Recruiting firms don't understand what we do.

• Management article: Lines of Code Still Being Measured and Estimated!—discredited measurement keeps reappearing.

• Project management article: Does Competition Ever Justify Reckless Shortcuts?—Dangers lurk in "Internet time"

• Programming article: What Ever Happened to Source Code Commentary?—a problem from the remote past is resurfacing and imposing huge costs.

• Book review: Another miscellaneous collection—mixed good and bad advice on project management.

• UPDATED Credit Card Gouging Grows— Did recent reform legislation curb abuses?

• Utility tip: Synchronizing directories—This old DOS technique still works.