You can often read about software development projects that failed. The presented figures vary from about 35% up to 75% of the total amount of projects. There is no need to argue these figures. Let’s better try to fight the causes. So, first we need to find the biggest traps in software development.

[Picture credits: Stock.xchng]

The adoption of social media is increasing at high speed. You only have to watch the impressive increase of Twitter and Facebook accounts. They offer both new opportunities and challenges to stand above the crowd. If you listen to all the advice there is hardly any way to escape from it. On the other hand the group of users is still rather small. Besides many accounts are hardly used and there is a big group of very passive users. Depending on your type of business this means you have to analyze carefully where you can meet your potential clients. Because there is still a big chance you have to meet them offline! The social media area might still be a geek domain.

This week we were unpleasantly surprised when we noticed the appearance of one of our clients in the Google search results had dramatically changed.

Soon the surprise changed into curiosity. It appeared we missed some Google news. Google recently announced showing the site hierarchy within the search results for some sites which offer hierarchical breadcrumbs in their navigation. And it looks like this:

To be honest it is still not clear if this is really what users are looking for. I think most users in general just click the clickable title. Besides not every website user will like that Google lets the user browse away.

Recently I have been working on quite a big website. From the very beginning I knew I would need data caching layer or something that will smartly do it. The simplest solution is just to check if something is in cache in my method code and take it from there. Well, but what if I have 100 methods? Should I call the same logic in all of them? This is only one method call, but still 100 times, makes me feel “this is not the smartest way to do it”. Fortunately I have found out a new approach to make my caching very robust and smart. It is called Aspect Oriented Programming. By using it I have reduced the amount of my code significantly.

Imagine you have an appointment. It’s a blind date. Can you remember such a moment?

You arrive at the agreed time at the agreed place. You look for that folded news paper or red flower.

Then you notice your date. What is the first thing you check?

Be honest what do you do when he or she is not what you were looking for? I know some friends who told me they just walked a way. Some of them fortunately sent an sms message that they wouldn’t manage.

photo credit: eflon

We are facing the same issue when people are visiting our website. Within a split second, to be honest about 4 up to 10 seconds, most people decide what they do, stay or go. But if they go in general they don’t send an sms.

The burning question is of course how to make them stay? The answer is easy: seduce them!

If you have just started a software developer’s career or changed a workplace these tips may comae in handy while establishing yourself in a new environment. It’s not easy to earn colleagues’ respect and reach the “core” of the company. Many fresh graduate developers fail at the very beginning for a variety of different reasons. I already presented a few tips on how to succeed in a new workplace in my previous post. Below you can read more tips that may help you survive in a new job.

Picture credits: stock.xchng

The biggest challenge in software projects, in my opinion, is defining the client’s needs. This might sound like an easy job, but if you don’t do it on a daily basis it will be a hard one. Just try to describe your preferred car to someone. Are you sure you are going to get the car of your dreams? I wouldn’t be too sure.

Describing business requirements that have to be converted into a well tested code is even more challenging. Fortunately, many tools are available to support this process. A method that is gaining more and more market attention is Behaviour Driven Development. We start to fall in love with it as well.

Are you starting your developer’s career? You stand 50% chance of losing this job within the first two years, the study revealed. Surprisingly, many great and talented people fail. I can imagine that after so many years of studying you don’t feel like getting fired. More importantly, it’s becoming the place you start spending 1/3 of your life at. You try to make yourself comfortable here and make other people feel the same with you around. How to settle yourself smoothly into the job? How to win colleagues’ respect?

Have you ever thought about CSS like about a simple programming language with simple syntax. Long hours of hard work suddenly disappear. Instead of writing many lines of code you can use a simple loop or easily define the whole layout grid.

Yesterday, on November 18, 2009, at the Professional Developer’s Conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft  released a new version of Silverlight Beta 4. Truly, I am astonished by the amount of features they delivered this time. We are coming closer and closer to the moment when web applications will work like regular desktop versions without portability issues and others. I have listed ten of the most interesting new features.