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There are several approaches regarding the software development process as product delivering techniques. Well known ones are ISO and CMMI standards. Both of them defines a rigorous process model to enhance the product development through well defined processes and normative that are relating “how do you must work”, but it forgets that you are working with people and not machines. Rigorous processes can be applied to machines, not people. You need something more dynamic to really solve problems. I have worked on several companies where those standards were applied twice. On early stages using CMM and now CMMI. I was not happy with them.

Typically a sales department takes schedules and milestones with a very lightweight look. They think that everything can be done and be delivered in very small periods because “it is easy to solve”, but it is not more than a charming lie. Just to be pleasant with the customer they can fall in horrendous schedules, that can lead the project managers to impose pressure on their programmers and then get the programmers tired of his job. Probably the worst mistake is to make a promise on a schedule that cannot be meet because you do not have enough resources to meet it or simply because you do not want to invest enough time to do it.

A good programmer takes its job seriously, not just like another job. He wants to be better always, and he is always trying to boost its productivity and knowledge. Usually they buy good books, and they assume a key role in most development companies. Who cannot recognise that fact, is lost and probably will drive a company that will not be able to successfully complete a project with the 100% projects approval from its customers. Passionate programmers and those who can deal with any kind of programming problem without requesting help are the ones that can lead a development team.

If you are .NET developer, you will notice that you cannot use XML ID and SGML ID attributes, in both XHTML and HTML. Each time you assign an ID programmatically through application code, like C# or Visual Basic .NET, that identifier will be modified by the framework. That is a real problem for those web developers that aren’t skilled on CSS, or even for a skilled designer is hard to adapt the identifier to the generated ID. There are various frameworks to work with, but probably .NET is the worst choice for HTML integration, since it is generating double work once you have to write the template integration.

Software project costs can vary too much depending on the technology that is used to build them. The price of certain software projects depends on its marketplace position of the technology that is used. For experienced programmers is not attractive to work on those technologies have lower costs. You can measure the difference between two technologies by its difficulty to handle it and its cost on the marketplace. A PHP programmers are less paid than Haskell programmers, but Haskell programming requires more knowledge about programming techniques than PHP.

On a recent job post on a certain site, for the very first time I have seen the requirement of having code published on github.com. Some employers must rethink about their job postings. You must know that github is not the only one social coding website. For example I host my projects on sourceforge.net. You can see my code any time, you just need to know how to use a browser, also you can download my code and send me patches if you find any bug on my hosted projects. Everything will be registered and will be public if you use the proper channel to do your commitment.

Reading resumes is — sometimes — a little bit fun. You can find very interesting ones, but others are wrong focused. Reading programmer resumes, now mostly called Software Engineers, can be more fun. The programmer market is focused to fit the needs on the local industry, so many resume readers, such as IT recruiters just pay attention to programmer certifications, educational grades, and some acquired experience, also a little of motivation and scope of the resume. Many times with a lack of a cover letter, and limited to certain number of technologies to cover the local industry needs. But no one asks for side projects or personal projects, they are not interested. Here is why I am only using the email address on this site (dmw at coder dot cl) from October 10th of 2009.