cema

Soundex was designed for a very specific purpose. It is very culture-dependent and, in my experience, is working very poorly in most practical applications related to matching names.

Time zones do make things interesting, but weekends are more or less synchronized. (Holidays are not, notably.)

In my opinion, only the last one may be justified.

Better is, imho,

  foreach (var e in employees) {
    // ...
  }

because the iteration variable is essentially a placeholder.

Yes, this is better. BTW, I saw people writing things like

  fs.id
  ,fs.file_hash

and

  file_name = '.vimrc'
  AND fs.id = ot.file_system_id

which has subtle advantages (such as easier editing).

Also, I cannot bring myself to writing SQL keywords in all caps. It feels ancient. Just a matter of taste.

An interesting read! I do follow certain rules when writing SQL, and I agree that having them and following them is a good idea. Plenty of what is in the article looks like good advice.

However, these rules do not always appear to be consistent with how the code in (most) other programming languages is written. Consider indentation, for example. The usual approach is to line up those elements of the code which correspond to the same logical level of the flow, whether it is C++, Javascript, or Lisp. So rather than (quoting from the article)

  SELECT file_hash
    FROM file_system
   WHERE file_name = '.vimrc'

I would rather see either

  SELECT file_hash
  FROM file_system
  WHERE file_name = '.vimrc'

or

  SELECT file_hash
      FROM file_system
      WHERE file_name = '.vimrc'

(The difference here is the same as between indented and non-indented braces in C.) I think this is especially useful when we have multiple joins or inner queries.

Many suggested rules are indeed consistent with what I have seen to be accepted as best practices. Such as naming a table in singular (more precisely, giving it the name of what a single row corresponds to), or avoiding the infamous Hungarian notation (pretty much an accepted best practice in most languages that I have seen).

Overall, I think, a good first step towards building best practices.

  pick the team to join solely based on the manager

My experience too. Of course there are other factors, but this is (arguably) the most important factor of all; the rest are just constraints, and this is like the objective function.

Any possibility of a remote job?

Interesting to see so many different opinions, and experiences. Apparently it is to a large extent a personal matter.

My experience is that I seem to prefer a mix of available options. For example, my current office is about 30 miles away from home, and I sometimes work form home and like it, but then I go to the office and like it too. After several days of working in the same environment I welcome the change of scenery.

Also, for the first time in many years, I got a private office, having moved there from a cubicle. It may be a status symbol more than a convenience, but it is a convenience for sure. No problem mixing private and public space as long as I have a choice of both.

Well, a lot could, of course. But the word agile is used rather loosely these days, and I think good advice can come from a blog with (almost) an arbitrary name.

  coming from someone of your same class/category

I think you make a very good point here: it is coming from a colleague, someone who is on (more or less) the same track as you are, only a little ahead of you in terms of the career path.

My comment does not imply that.

I could, but first we would need to see where our common points are. For instance, you mentioned "the constant expansion": how is that consistent with the Camp David accord, Oslo accords, the removal of the Gaza settlements?

This is becoming dangerously political. You think it is the fact, I think it is the opposite of the fact; not a good dialogue.

Italy, not Australia. Released in 2004 (according to Wikipedia, did not dig further).

I think the history of the state of Israel shows it is much less than trigger sensitive.

Thank you! This is a good compendium of what is wrong and can be right...

Yes. It used to be neocons. In time, it will be something else.

Amazing comments in this thread. Just amazing. It's as if the weapon is working right here.

I think I have to reluctantly agree. Collaboration is a huge part of a developer's professional life.

Well, I do. There is a whole host of problems and issues associated with it. One is that the border is a murky legal area, US Constitution is not completely applicable there, and the laws that do work are not sufficiently known to the public.

I agree with the main message: we are not underpaid. Considering the risks we are taking (both in life and in career) we live comfortable lives indeed.

A side note: when you said "I didn't have to pass a single licensing exam" I immediately thought of the way our profession tends to have that kind of exam every time we interview each other. A big part of interview for a software developer is based on the exam-type material; this is very different from the way other professionals, even engineers, have their interviews. (Does not contradict your message, just a note.)

Very true. And, of course, it is important to remember that interviews are in many ways two-way streets: the candidate interviews the company just as the company interviews the candidate.

True.

In C# one can always

  #pragma warning disable ${list of warnings}

and

  #pragma warning restore ${list of warnings}

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/441722ys.aspx

Although frankly the list of warnings to disable and restore consists of warning numbers, not names, which is not super convenient.

I am of a different persuasion. Even if you are doing one thing, but it is indeed a thing, refactor it as a separate abstraction. You will end up with a better set of building blocks.

  Harder to engage a remote employee in company culture and values 

You know, I am not sure it is such a bad idea. A diversity of cultures can make the work a better place. Besides, what is the "company culture and values" anyway? I am, frankly, more suspicious than curious.

And yet, people are often asked to estimate their level of specific knowledge "on the scale of 1 to 10".

Proportionally, the price may be comparable. For example, in Massachusetts, the current minimal wage is $10 per hour which translates into about $1700 monthly. 50-100 Mbps in Comcast can be had for about $40-60. Now, a monthly subscription of $2 out of $58 is 1/29, and $1700/29 = $58.

Of course, not all components of the prices translate proportionally. Salaries probably do, equipment probably does not.

Yes, normative dialects are selected to be the language. Often based on the dialect of the capital city.