Cognitive Dissonance in Programming In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort (psychological stress) experienced by a person who simultaneously holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. The occurrence of cognitive dissonance is a consequence of a person performing an action that contradicts personal beliefs, ideals, and values; and also occurs when confronted with new information that contradicts said beliefs, ideals, and values. In the fable of The Fox and the Grapes, by Aesop, on failing to reach the desired bunch of grapes, the fox then decides he does not truly want the fruit because it is sour.

Why experience and intuition can ruin decision making? There is more than one way. There is always more than one way. There is more than one way. There is always more than one way. This simple credo can be a practical beacon throughout our professional life, leading us to consider alternatives in how software might be organized and how people might be organized. But recognizing alternatives also carries a burden, the burden of making decisions.

A Refreshing Guide to Object.freeze in Javascript by Dr.Victor Fries What killed the dinosaurs? The Ice Age! In JavaScript, objects are used to store keyed collections of various data and more complex entities. Objects penetrate almost every aspect of the JavaScript language. The object might be accessed as global or passed as an argument. Functions that have access to the object can modify the object, whether intentionally or accidentally. To prevent modification of our objects, one of the techniques is to use Object.

Consensus and Compromise Getting the most from a software development team depends on the ability to build technical consensus among the professionals on the project. But why should it matter whether you and your office mate agree on the layout of an entry form or the best way to report error messages? Technical consensus is not about getting along together or feeling close to your fellow programmers. (Not that there is anything wrong with getting along or feeling good about each other.

The Quasi-Forgotten Software Scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. Remember Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol, toiling away on the books at the august firm of Scrooge and Marley, finger-less gloves on his hands to keep them from freezing between entries? Watching it will start us to thinking about old Bob and all the other “clarks” who kept the records for so many enterprises over the centuries.

Two simple ways to negotiate consensus in a software development group You can’t reach consensus unless you recognize it when you have it in your grasp. This means that software development groups trying to reach collective decisions are wise to agree, in advance, on the criteria by which technical matters will be decided. What is important? What matters? What is “good” and what is “bad” within the confines of this particular project?

Arguing for the sake of arguments in JavaScript This article deals with some intricacies revolving around the arguments object, a magical and mysterious creature residing in the functional realms of the Javascript world, which can be summoned anytime in your code by the programming wizards without any spells, incantations or sorcery. The arguments object is an Array-like object corresponding to the arguments passed to a function. It is a local variable available within all (non-arrow) functions.

The Four Factors of a Good Program If we plan to study programming as a human activity, we are going to have to develop some measures of programming performance. That is, we are going to have some idea of what we mean when we say that one programmer is better than another, or one program is better than another. Although we all have opinions on these questions, we shall find that the answers are not as simple as we might wish.

Egoless Programming Egoless programming is a concept introduced by Gerald Weinberg in The Psychology Of Computer Programming. The idea is that programmers must fight the natural tendency to treat their programs as part of themselves, and therefore to reject all criticism. Rather, they should do their best to treat their designs & implementations as objects independent of themselves, and to view criticism dispassionately on its merits. What is to be done about the ego problem in programming?

The Twelve Roadblocks to Healthy Conversations What obvious obstacles are relevant to obstruct a conversation? Experts in interpersonal communication have identified various response patterns that tend to block conversation. Thomas Gordon devised a comprehensive list that he calls the “dirty dozen” of communication spoilers. These undesirable responses include: Criticizing Making a negative evaluation of the other person, his/her actions, or attitudes. The act of passing judgment as to the merits of anything; censure; faultfinding.