I'm a Java/J2ee programmer working in India. I'm very passionate about programming and I constantly strive to hone my programming skills by reading blogs, solving Project euler questions, lea...

Our profession often requires deep learning; sitting down and reading, and understanding. I'm currently undergoing an exam period, and I'm looking for ways to learn more effectively. I'm not...

From what I understand, the crystals on PCs are notorious for clock skew. If clocks are always skewing, what is the best way to synchronize clocks between machines, with millisecond accuracy and pr...

Does anyone have recommendations for a good task/time management tool. Ideally this would just keep track of programming tasks / the project and the time spent also the option to produce an...

We're building an app that stores "hours of operation" for various businesses. What is the easiest way to represent this data so you can easily check if an item is open? Some options: Segment ou...

I've been thinking about software estimation lately, and I have a bunch of questions around time spent coding. I'm curious to hear from people who have had at least a couple years of experien...

I work at a smallish web agency (3 programmers, 2 project managers), we mostly make sites for marketing campaigns and also some larger sites. Most of our projects are a week, maybe two, in de...

As a lead developer I often get handed specifications for a new project, and get asked how long it'll take to complete the programming side of the work involved, in terms of hours. I was jus...

Like many here, I am a one-man development team. I'm responsible for everything from gathering project requirements, designing concept-screens, planning and developing databases, and writing ...

It happens fairly frequently that I'll finish up a big project or get done with a meeting around 30-45 minutes before my time to go home. There are usually things that need to be done, but it...

I have a laptop and bunch of 5 min segments throughout my day. I used to think this was simply too short a time to do 'anything'. Though with a little practice and a few minor behavioral chan...

I have a developer on my staff that chronically overshoots deadlines, and estimates. On several projects the last week or two everyday I hear "It should be done by the end of the day". This d...

I've had several false starts in the past with teaching myself how to program. I've worked through several books (mostly C and Python), and end up just learning the syntax without feeling as ...

The CodePlex team has a Slack time policy, and it's worked out very well for them. Jim Newkirk and myself used it to work on the xUnit.net project. Jonathan Wanagel used it to work on SvnBr...

Working with software day-to-day usually means you have to juggle project work, meetings, calls and other interrupts. What single technique, trick, or tool do you find most useful in managin...