Archive for category Uncategorized

Who the heck is Corey Haines?

Feb 27

Posted by Tomasz Dziurko in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

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As you may have noticed (new blue square in the header) I started using Twitter recently. Just to try and see how it could improve the quality of information I receive and information I finally find useful and worth reading.  I checked who my friends are following and Paul Szulc told me to check his following list so I started watching some people he suggested. Some names were familiar, some were not but I decided not to judge too early, just read what they say and analyse.

Amongst those people were one man, Corey Haines, tweeting really often. I had no idea who he was and I haven’t even check what Google would return. I know, shame on me, but last week was the end of scrum sprint and we were on tight schedule so I didn’t have a lot of free time.

But why am I writing about him? Lately I was talking with Paul Szulc again and we were discussing about what IT books are worth reading, he told me about “Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests” by Steve Freeman (by the way, Steve is going to speak at 33rdDegree in April here in Poland, so another smart person will try to to widen my horizons there). Paul sent me a link to presentation from QCon 2010 to watch before starting any new book. Presentation is titled “Software Craftsmanship – Beyond The Hype” and today I decided to watch it despite my wife asking me to watch next episode of CSI series with her :) So I spent an hour on this video and who did I see there? Corey Haines :) Apparently he is not only tweeting a lot but also he is a speaker at many conferences too. And what could I say about his presentation? Really, really good. As craftsmanship became a slogan he points some useful things to do to improve your skills, learn and reach higher level. And what I liked the most is a sentence which I understand as:

Software Craftsmanship is not (only) about developing quality software but about Developing Quality Software Developers

and I liked it so much that I decided to share it with you :) So if you have one free hour , please consider watching Corney Haines talk “Software Craftsmanship – Beyond The Hype”.


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What would you do if your boss give you one week for self-education?

Dec 19

Posted by Tomasz Dziurko in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

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Let’s suppose following scenario:

You are somewhat experienced Java Developer working on a very sophisticated project in the science sector. You create very, very complicated module using very, very time-consuming algorithm which can not be multithreaded. And when you are ready, tests with small data portions went fine, your boss comes to your desk and clicks big, red button on your monitor to proudly start the whole process. Of course nothing bad happens, you just can observe growing CPU and memory usage. Your team expect that those calculation will take about one week to finish and give you results which are indispensable for you next tasks. It’s JIRA blocker status and until it finishes, you had nothing to do. Your boss asks you to visit him in his room and says:

- Tom, you did a great job with this module. Everything seems to run smoothly and I can not wait to see the results! We must wait one week and it’s a spare time which I would like you to use for you self-education and self-development. What you are going to do and learn?

Of course we don’t know whether this boss is going to pay Tom for this time or not :) But it’s not the case. Tom now has a problem: 40 hours of free time which he can spend on any technology/methodology/language/etc he wants to learn and this opportunity comes to him so unexpectedly that he can not make up his mind.

Please help him! What would YOU do with these 40 hours? :)


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Programming books in English with free worldwide delivery, repost

Oct 2

Posted by Tomasz Dziurko in Uncategorized | No Comments

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Few days ago in the discussion in Polish LinkedIn-like portal GoldenLine about constant learning for people working in the IT, delivery costs from Amazon to Poland and ebooks appeared that only small group of people knows about online book store that sends all its books for free, even to Poland :)

This book store is The Book Depository and I found this information in this post (in Polish) by Michał Margiel (thanks!) on the Warsaw Java Users Group forum. But because not everyone reads this forum regularly and awareness that such book store exists can be very useful for most of us, IT people, I am reposting it on my blog :)


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Chuck Norris and Java

May 10

Posted by Tomasz Dziurko in Uncategorized | No Comments

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While browsing through last news from DZone.com I found brilliant post with jokes about Chuck Norris and Java. Below those I liked the most:

  • Chuck Norris can make a class that is both abstract and final.
  • Chuck Norris demonstrated the meaning of Float.POSITIVE_INFINITY by counting to it, twice.
  • A synchronize doesn’t protect against Chuck Norris, if he wants the object, he takes it.
  • Code runs faster when Chuck Norris watches it.
  • If you get a ChuckNorrisException you’ll probably die.
  • Java visibility levels are public, default, protected, private and “protected by Chuck Norris”, don’t try to access a field with this last modifier!!
  • Garbage collector only runs on Chuck Norris code to collect the bodies.
  • Chuck Norris can do multiple inheritance in Java.
  • Chuck Norris extends God.
  • Chuck Norris codes generics since 1.3.

You can find more here.


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Pełne archiwum SDJ 2008 i 2007 do zgarnięcia

Apr 30

Posted by Tomasz Dziurko in In Polish, News, Uncategorized | No Comments

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Dear Reader
This post is in my native language as it applies only to developers society in Poland. Please feel free to check my other posts which are mainly written in English.

Dzisiaj do mojej skrzynki wpadł newsletter od Software Developer’s Journal. A w nim:

Archiwum SDJ za darmo

Maj za pasem. Zbliża się długi weekend, więc większość z Was na pewno jest w świetnych nastrojach ;-) Aby jeszcze bardziej poprawić Wam humor, mamy dla Was niespodziankę!

Wszyscy, którzy w dniach 30.04 – 5.05, kupią najnowsze wydanie Software Developer’s Journal 5/2009 i prześlą na adres: lukasz.lopuszanski@software.com.pl  zeskanowany dowód zakupu, otrzymają:

Kompletne archiwum SDJ 2008 ( obejmujące również numery EXTRA )w formacie PDF, oraz kompletne archiwum SDJ 2007 ( wraz z numerami EXTRA ) w formacie PDF!

Wszystkich serdecznie zapraszamy do skorzystania z tej wyjątkowej okazji.
Udanego wypoczynku!!!

Redakcja SDJ

I nawet jeśli uważam, że dla programisty Java regularne kupowanie SDJ nie jest konieczne ze względu na bardzo szeroki zakres prezentowanych zagadnień i częstą sytuację, że ciekawe/przydatne są 1-2 artykuły w numerze to sam pomysł z udostępnieniem pełnego archiwum z dwóch lat w zamian za kupienie majowego wydania bardzo mi się podoba i mam zamiar z takiego prezentu skorzystać :)


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