Programming language trends come and go. First, Java is the hot new language, then it's Python, then Ruby steals the limelight, then it's back to JavaScript. But the latest language darling is probably the last one anyone expected. Believe it or not, 2011 could be the year of C++.Last week, the latest version of the ISO C++ Standard was approved by unanimous vote. It's the first major revision of the language in 13 years. Now officially known as C++11, the new standard introduces features designed to make it easier to develop software for modern parallel processing architectures, including lam...

If someone asks you to recommend a good programmer, who comes to mind? Do you consider yourself a good programmer? What criteria do you use to judge?In thinking about this, I realized that there are different ways that a programmer can be good. So I present to you The Four Kinds of Good Programmers. And in celebration of Whyday, I include quirky Why-styled illustrations* for your viewing pleasure!The PhilosopherThe PhilosopherThe philosopher loves to write well-defined, well-structured, beautiful code. That the program will be implemented is assumed; the elegance, robustness, and flexibil...

We want to foster a creative environment. We love it when employees hack onside projects. It gets people excited. Excitement is contagious, andspreads easily from one project to another. Even if we’ll never make money onthat side project, the excitement generated from it can bleed into things thatwill make us money.AlcoholIt’s no secret that there’s more than a few people at GitHub who like to drink.I mean, we have four beers on-tap at the office in our kegerator.But alcohol is more important than just intoxication.We meet people. Through our sponsored drinkups, we meet a ...

This is — by far — my favorite aspect of working at GitHub. Everything isasynchronous.ChatGitHub didn’t have an office for the first two years. Chat rooms (in our case,Campfire) is where things got done. Today we’ve moved into oursecond office, and Campfire is still where we get things done. There’s areason for that: chat is asynchronous.Asynchronous communication means I can take a step out for lunch and catch upon transcripts when I get back. Asynchronous communication means I can ask mycoworker a question in-chat and not worry about bothering her since she...

Frederick Winslow Taylor wrote the seminal analysis of management andefficiency in 1911 with The Principles of Scientific Management. Hetook the first scientific approach towards maximizing efficiency inmanufacturing jobs. Time is money. Faster is better. More hours are better.Hours are bullshitHours are great ways to determine productivity in many industries, but notours. Working in a startup is a much different experience than working in afactory. You can’t throw more time at a problem and expect it to get solved.Code is a creative endeavor. You need to be in the right mindset to crea...

In Java, we can create modal dialog so that the main JFrame cannot be operated on until the modal dialog is closed. To achieve this, we need to use one class in Java--JDialog. This class can be used to create an modal dialog.Example code :import javax.swing.JDialog;import javax.swing.JLabel;import javax.swing.JPanel;public class Dialog extends JDialog{ public Dialog(){ super(); JPanel panel=new JPanel(); panel.add(new JLabel("Hello dialog")); this.getContentPane().add(panel); } public Dialog(MainFrame mf,String title,boolean modal){ super(mf,title...

Every experience you have as a software developer should change you in some way. And I don’t just mean growing older by virtue of time passing. Everything you do should evolve your understanding of your craft (and/or related skills) or your understanding of yourself – which ultimately achieves the same goal. I am not just talking about major milestones in your software development career like switching jobs, becoming a leader/manager or starting you own company. Every job, every project big or small, every significant interaction you have with your team mates and even every story...

I started out my journey with programming as a teenager learning GW-BASIC. Soon I learnt C language followed by C++.  I was impressed with the OO syntactic constructs C++ had on offer but I felt a little uneasy with a few constructs such as the scope resolution. I started studying Java. It immediately caught my attention with the syntactic improvements and simplifications it brought over C++.I was still in academics, so learning(precisely trying) programming languages on surface, was a fun activity. I went through PHP, Javascript. I came in interaction with C#. This was the time...