Wednesday, February 28, 2007
rework not waste
Google Reader (100+): "I believe that Alistair Cockburn's paper from the ICAM 2005 International Conference on Agility will come to seen as a seminal paper in Lean Software Engineering (ironic as it was inspired by the Theory of Constraints). In this paper, Cockburn explains that asking a non-bottleneck resource to do extra work to rework something does not cost anything extra and can create a desirable effect because it allows progress to be made and demonstrated earlier. Ergo, rework is not waste when performed by a non-bottleneck resource."
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
The top 50 most expensive adwords
"Loan consolidation" ($69.16) currently owns them all
This is the list of the top 50 most expensive loan consolidations Google adwords as of September 11, 2006 (GMT+1) (according to wget, grep, sed & friends).
I found it rather amazing that the keywords loan consolidation for college, school, car etc. are much more expensive than, say... even private yachts, jets, luxury homes and so on!
Prices are shown in estimated average CPC (costs per click). Yes, just one tiny click from someone searching for these keywords is worth almost $70 to someone, apparently.
| Adword | Average CPC | |
|---|---|---|
| school loan consolidation | $69.16 | |
| college loan consolidation | $68.35 | |
| car insurance quotes | $66.88 | |
| school consolidation | $66.29 | |
| auto insurance quotes | $65.90 | |
| college consolidation | $64.04 | |
| student loan consolidation rates | $60.14 | |
| sell structured settlement | $59.82 | |
| sell annuity | $58.92 | |
| federal student loan consolidation | $58.58 | |
| auto quotes | $58.09 | |
| auto insurance quote | $57.99 | |
| student consolidation | $56.96 | |
| student loan consolidation | $56.91 | |
| student loan consolidation interest rate | $56.52 | |
| consolidate student loan | $54.61 | |
| san diego dui attorney | $54.56 | |
| car insurance | $53.16 | |
| structured settlement | $52.96 | |
| consolidate school loans | $52.88 | |
| student loan refinance | $52.44 | |
| consolidation of student loans | $52.43 | |
| consolidation loan rate | $52.04 | |
| citibank student loan consolidation | $51.85 | |
| car insurance quote | $51.80 | |
| consolidate student loans | $51.23 | |
| private student loan consolidation | $51.05 | |
| lasik new york | $49.86 | |
| student loans consolidation | $49.82 | |
| private loan consolidation | $48.95 | |
| insurance quotes | $48.78 | |
| teleconference services | $48.72 | |
| the art institute of seattle | $48.68 | |
| federal loan consolidation | $48.61 | |
| plus loan consolidation | $47.74 | |
| student loan consolidation programs | $47.58 | |
| bad credit equity loan | $47.46 | |
| houston criminal attorney | $47.44 | |
| student loan consolidation calculator | $47.19 | |
| cash settlement | $47.12 | |
| consolidating student loans | $47.09 | |
| orlando culinary institute | $46.84 | |
| student loan consolidation program | $46.77 | |
| orlando culinary institute | $46.69 | |
| consolidation loan | $46.54 | |
| loan consolidation | $46.54 | |
| orlando culinary institute | $46.51 | |
| ditech | $46.32 | |
| auto quote | $45.77 | |
| sallie mae student loan consolidation | $45.69 |
Once your loan has brought you through college, you probably will be in huge need of the adwords below position #50, which are mostly insurances, tax-related keywords and - bless America - lawyers ;)
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
The Top 10 Attributes of a Great Programmer – Programming Matters
The Top 10 Attributes of a Great Programmer – Programming Matters
1. Being a great problem solver.
2. Being driven and lazy at the same time.
3. Ability to understand other people’s code
4. Having a passion for programming
5. Loving learning for the sake of learning
6. Being good at math
7. Having good communications skills
8. Strong debating skills
9. Extreme optimism
10. Extreme pessimism
After putting together this list some aspects surprised me, and I was the one who put together the list. So let me explain each in detail.These attributes describe those I’ve found in pretty much every great programmer I’ve come across. There were a number that fell through the cracks and I’ll explain those later.
1. Being a great problem solver - Hopefully everyone recognizes this one. Most good programming is all about being able to find solutions where others can’t see them. If you don’t have this skill the others matter far less.
2. Being driven and lazy at the same time - This one surprises some people. Programmers question things and are often “too lazy” to take the long route. The will spend countless cycles trying to simplify the problem and simplify their task. That said they having a burning need to get the job done, they just want to do it as efficiently as possible.
3. Ability to understand other people’s code - This point is essential but cuts some good programmers off from being great programmers. It doesn’t matter how well you can rewrite everything yourself - you need to be able to work with other people’s code on existing projects, lean on opensource in new projects, and learn good techniques from the code base that is already out there.
4. Having a passion for programming - on some level you have to love programming for programming’s sake. I suppose to be truly great at anything you have to love it in most cases.
5. Loving learning for the sake of learning - Programming is a moving target. Unless you love the art of edification you will sink fast. There are no laurels to rest on and no one cares what you did yesterday. Unless you are aware of the techniques on the horizon, you won’t be ready to embrace them when they become relevant.
6. Being good at math - Different people will have different opinions here - but at the very least having a strong grip on pre-Calculus math. I’ve never seen a great programmer without a solid grasp of at the very least algebra and trig.
7. Having good communications skills - This doesn’t mean that they can communicate with anyone and everyone. Specifically this means that they are able to clearly express their thoughts on their own terms. I’ve met plenty of great programmers who couldn’t communicate well with the world at large. However, given someone to talk to who understands the problem domain, they were all able to clearly state the problem and the solutions proposed.
8. Strong debating skills - This follows the same logic as #7.
9. Extreme optimism - Great programmers I have encountered have an insane certainty they can get the job done once they have chewed on it a bit.
10. Extreme pessimism - Great programmers I have encountered have an insane insistence that when they lack the information needed to make a good judgment that they won’t be able to make one at all.
1. Being a great problem solver.
2. Being driven and lazy at the same time.
3. Ability to understand other people’s code
4. Having a passion for programming
5. Loving learning for the sake of learning
6. Being good at math
7. Having good communications skills
8. Strong debating skills
9. Extreme optimism
10. Extreme pessimism
After putting together this list some aspects surprised me, and I was the one who put together the list. So let me explain each in detail.These attributes describe those I’ve found in pretty much every great programmer I’ve come across. There were a number that fell through the cracks and I’ll explain those later.
1. Being a great problem solver - Hopefully everyone recognizes this one. Most good programming is all about being able to find solutions where others can’t see them. If you don’t have this skill the others matter far less.
2. Being driven and lazy at the same time - This one surprises some people. Programmers question things and are often “too lazy” to take the long route. The will spend countless cycles trying to simplify the problem and simplify their task. That said they having a burning need to get the job done, they just want to do it as efficiently as possible.
3. Ability to understand other people’s code - This point is essential but cuts some good programmers off from being great programmers. It doesn’t matter how well you can rewrite everything yourself - you need to be able to work with other people’s code on existing projects, lean on opensource in new projects, and learn good techniques from the code base that is already out there.
4. Having a passion for programming - on some level you have to love programming for programming’s sake. I suppose to be truly great at anything you have to love it in most cases.
5. Loving learning for the sake of learning - Programming is a moving target. Unless you love the art of edification you will sink fast. There are no laurels to rest on and no one cares what you did yesterday. Unless you are aware of the techniques on the horizon, you won’t be ready to embrace them when they become relevant.
6. Being good at math - Different people will have different opinions here - but at the very least having a strong grip on pre-Calculus math. I’ve never seen a great programmer without a solid grasp of at the very least algebra and trig.
7. Having good communications skills - This doesn’t mean that they can communicate with anyone and everyone. Specifically this means that they are able to clearly express their thoughts on their own terms. I’ve met plenty of great programmers who couldn’t communicate well with the world at large. However, given someone to talk to who understands the problem domain, they were all able to clearly state the problem and the solutions proposed.
8. Strong debating skills - This follows the same logic as #7.
9. Extreme optimism - Great programmers I have encountered have an insane certainty they can get the job done once they have chewed on it a bit.
10. Extreme pessimism - Great programmers I have encountered have an insane insistence that when they lack the information needed to make a good judgment that they won’t be able to make one at all.
