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"Does your company let you work from wherever you want? If it doesn't, it may be watching as progress passes it by. The next generation of working doesn't require a desk."

This article will focus on one of the most important functional programming constructs: working with values as opposed to identities. I'll discuss the strong support C++ has always had for working with values, then show how the new C++ 11 standard expands this support with lambdas. Finally, I'll introduce a method of working with immutable data structures that maintains the speed C++ is known for while providing the protection that functional languages have long enjoyed.

A popular saying goes that programmers are machines that turn caffeine into code. And sure enough, ask a random programmer when they do their best work and there's a high chance they will admit to a lot of late nights. Some earlier, some later. A popular trend is to get up at 4am and get some work done before the day's craziness begins. Others like going to bed at 4am. At the gist of all this is avoiding distractions. But you could just lock the door, what's so special about the night? Read more: http://swizec.com/blog/why-programmers-work-at-night/swizec/3198#ixzz2q7HdMxaZ

"One of the things I like most about working in software development is the fact the for the most part you get to work with fairly intelligent people. I've always wondered why so many smart people manage their career so poorly."

"Interfaces are wonderful for a language like C#. Interfaces give us everything we need to work with an object in a strongly-typed manner, but place the least number of constraints on the object implementing the interface. Interfaces make the C# compiler happy without forcing us to pay an inheritance tax for working with a class hierarchy. We'll define an interface that describes exactly how we want to fetch customers and how we want the customers packaged for us to consume."

"If you're afraid to look at your To-Do list, it's not working.  Your To-Do list should inspire you. One of the things that happens a lot with To-Do lists is they can get overwhelming.  It's easy to pile on more things.  Eventually, you're afraid to even look at your To-Do list.   What once started out as a great list of things to make happen, has now became a laundry list of things that hurts more than it helps."

Some time ago, the development team at my firm staged a revolt against the sales team and senior management: our demand was that no Statement of Work was to be sent to a customer without first being reviewed by a member of the development team. [..] Today I would like to explore an important aspect of any Statement of Work: the pricing model.

"Instead of waiting until the end of a project to ask 'what worked and what didn't, why not use regular retrospective analysis as part of the development process  to find out what is, and isn't, working, and learn from the conclusions there and then?"

"But even in today's SW industry, there does not seem to be much of an expectation from SW professionals that we should have the 'capability/tools to build our own tools' that do much of the project work for us. I am not talking about the simple automation, things like rename/refactor or autocorrect, or intellisense and all that, I am talking about the kind of automation and tooling that writes or deploys software for us and saves hours, days and weeks of our time from handcrafting software solutions from scratch again."

"All code can be classified into two distinct roles; code that does work (algorithms) and code that coordinates work (coordinators)."

"The EF 4.1 DbContext API works with Code First, Database First, and Model First and provides a simplified, productive environment for building all types of data-backed applications"

"I've been using Resharper since I started coding in .NET/C#. It's a tool with a lot of features which aids you in the average day development. In this blog post I'm going to show you the features that I use the most."

This article takes a closer than normal look at everyone's favourite data structure - the .NET dictionary. There are quite a lot of different dictionaries classes in .NET these days, so I'm going to explore how they work, what their differences are and where to use them.

"Some people claim agile has "crossed the chasm." Certainly, many people are aware of agile. Many people understand that a cross-functional team works in increments, delivering features asking for feedback. That's at the team level. So when I say 'Agile is Not for Everyone' what do I mean? The problem is agile is not just for teams. "

"We've been working with, building, and evangelising message queues for the last year, and it's no secret that we think they're awesome. We believe message queues are a vital component to any architecture or application, and here are ten reasons why:"

"I've done a number of talks on Productivity in the past. Lots of folks ask me what my tips are for being productive. I've taken all those tips as well as tips from Kathy Sierra, Stephen Covey, David Allen, The Pomodoro Technique and many more and aggregated them into a system that works well for me. I talk about how to effectively handle large amounts email, sorting your personal data stream, how to conserve your keystrokes, the "one email rule" that you need to be effective"

"[..] the reason I have done all this work is my very strong belief that TDD as a practice has a large amount of value well beyond what most people understand. In fact, I believe that of all the practices made popular by the agile movement, TDD is the most beneficial practice overall. Here are eight reasons why I believe that TDD should be beyond debate."

Some people are naturally pre-disposed to being highly productive. They start their days with a clear and reasonable intention of what they plan to do, and then they work diligently throughout the day, sticking to their plans, focused on accomplishing their most important priorities, until the day ends and they've achieved precisely what they had expected. Each day moves them one day closer to what they intend to accomplish over the year. I am, unfortunately, not one of those people.

Good Web design shouldn't be memorable. Good Web design should be quietly working behind the scenes to allow its glory hunting brother - content - to step forward and take center stage.

"This is the cone of uncertainty, a measure of the accuracy of our estimation of effort as we get closer to finishing work. Very close to finishing, we have a very good idea of how much is left. As we move away from the time to completion, the variance of our estimates increases drastically."