iamacp.com – I Am A Computer Programmer
All about the daily work issues of a Java/J2EE Computer Programmer

Conference calls for a software developer are an all to common occurrence. In my experience the larger the company the more frequently conference calls seem to occur. It usually makes sense to keep developers scattered about the country and world to what’s going on. The exception is when the calls usually contain information that’s not related to the work of the developer.

As a contractor I absolutely don’t care about any work that’s not related to my own unless it affects my work.  Wasting my time with unnecessary conference calls means I’m working less and have less time to devote to actually getting things done.  Lately I’ve been on roughly 5+ hours of conference calls a week because of the going ons of the company I’m working for. This is ridiculous.

Conference calls when personal between the developer and supervisors and business analysts can also be a very valuable source of information. It is very important to understand the logic behind and app and sometimes conference calls can be only the way the information can be obtained.

This is just my 2 cents about conference calls from a developers point of view.

This is a interesting Java video that talks about nullness analysis for Java. I never realized this much to nulls. Very fascinating like all the Google videos.

Have you ever wondered what goes on inside a computer programmer’s mind? Maybe or maybe not but the work of most applications starts out in the real computer called the human mind.  It’s in the mind of a programmer that the complex logic of an application is worked out. The computer does the processing but the real work was done in the mind of one or many programmer’s.

How A Computer Programmer Thinks

I’d like to discuss how powerful a computer programmer’s mind is by showing some of the steps a programmer goes through to write an application.

• Programmer Reads Requirements Of An Application – A computer programmer must understand the requirements of an application before he can think how to solve a problem. Without understanding a requirement he cannot begin to think how he can accomplish a task. This is a no brainer for any computer programmer.

• A Programmer Begins To Formulate Ideas How To Solve A Problem - After a programmer understands a requirement his brain starts to formulate possible solutions to the task at hand. He will use his past experience and knowledge to guide him in the right direction. He may consult many resources and talk with coworkers if needed.

• A Programmer Will Constantly Rework Logic In His Head Until He Gets It Working - Writing applications can be quite challenging. Getting a requirement to work as expected may constantly requiring program logic to be reworked in a programmer’s mind many times.  Persistence and dedication truly show the power of the programmer’s mind.

As you can see in this article the power of a computer programmer’s mind is vast and limitless.