The anecdotal benefits of esoteric languages are a selection
effect. Here is a common scenario. Lots of really smart
programmers think they are too good to waste their talents doing mere
application programming. But they also love esoteric languages that show
off how smart they are. So you can get them to do application
programming by letting them use their beloved smarty-pants languages.
Presto, amazing results. But the ubermensch aren’t about to stoop to
maintenance programming. Once the fun development is done, they are
gone. When you bring in professional programmers to take care of things,
they are dumbfounded by the towering monument to mental masturbation.
The system gets thrown out and rewritten in a normal programming
language using normal techniques that normal people understand. The
super programmers blame it on the stupidity of the new hires, further
confirming their sense of superiority.

http://alarmingdevelopment.org/?p=392

for id in `wmctrl -l | cut -d " " -f 1`; do
    xprop -id $id | grep "_NET_WM_STATE_DEMANDS_ATTENTION" 2>&1 > /dev/null
    if [ "$?" = "0" ]; then
        wmctrl -i -a $id
        exit 0
    fi
done
exit 1

Requirements: Wmctrl (sudo apt-get install wmctrl)

Here’s another adaptation I’ve added. Two scripts, one bound to Win-r to jump to the window demanding attention, and another bound to W-Shift-r that jumps back to the window you were busy with.

First:

#!/bin/bash
activeWinIdLine=`xprop -root | grep _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW\(WINDOW\) `
activeWinId="${activeWinIdLine:40}"
echo $activeWinId > ~/activeWinId
for id in `wmctrl -l | cut -d " " -f 1`; do
	xprop -id $id | grep "_NET_WM_STATE_DEMANDS_ATTENTION" 2>&1 > /dev/null
	if [ "$?" = "0" ]; then
		wmctrl -i -a $id
		exit 0
	fi
done
exit 1

Second:

#!/bin/bash
if [ -f ~/activeWinId ]; then
	origWinId=`cat ~/activeWinId`
	wmctrl -i -a $origWinId
fi

Download these scripts and more from my Github.

Coolest hack I’ve ever seen, but can lights refresh that quickly?! Please don’t destroy my hopes and dreams by finding proof it’s a hoax.

Most of the info I found on the web didn’t help, but I eventually solved it myself by using hook post-revprop-change instead of post-commit with the code shown below. This code only activates when svnsync is completely finished and has unlocked the destination repository, then it syncs the latest revision with Trac and then runs the Trac post-commit hook to close tickets, etc. Svnsync only seems to update commit messages and users after committing code, so Trac has the wrong information in post-commit, so you have to use post-revprop-change instead.

REPOS="$1"
REV="$2"
USER="$3"
PROPNAME="$4"
ACTION="$5"

# Export bash variables required by trac.fcgi
export HOME="/home/me"
# Root directory for the Trac project
export TRAC_PROJECT_DIR="/home/me/trac_projects"
export TRAC_ENV="/home/me/trac_projects/myproj"

. ${HOME}/.bash_profile

if [ "$ACTION" = "D" -a "$PROPNAME" = "svn:sync-lock" ]; then
    YOUNGEST_REV=`svnlook youngest /home/me/svn/myproj`
    trac-admin $TRAC_ENV resync $YOUNGEST_REV
    ${RUN}/bin/python ${RUN}/share/trac/contrib/trac-post-commit-hook \
        -p "$TRAC_ENV" \
        -r "$YOUNGEST_REV"
fi

This is pretty huge, because depending on how restrictive the sandbox is we could run Scala, Groovy, Jython, JRuby, etc. on top of the same VM. Now if I can just get my head around non-relational databases.

Our work process is a dream.

We have to build all the structures in our mind, piece by piece, and then translate them into code. Developers don’t just sit down, write out code using standardised formulas, and call it a day. No, we have to build an imaginary house of cards in our minds and then painstakingly transform every angle, force, and material into logic code, all without waking from the dream. It is a creative process, and one not easily replicated.

Now, imagine you were in deep sleep, dreaming away about apples at 3am, and I came bashing into your room and said “Sorry, but we need you to dream about bananas now.” Do you think you could go straight back to sleep in a few seconds, dream about bananas for a bit, and then jump back to your original dream about apples? No, of course not, but this is what managers expect when they throw new tasks at us while we’re busy coding the first one. When this happens we’ve lost the hours we’ve spent on the first dream, we’re completely lost for half an hour, and then we eventually manage to get into the new dream.

So please, if you want your developers to remain sane and productive do not wake them from their dream!

p.s. also make sure they’re not doing the same work year after year, there’s nothing that developers hate more than repeating themselves.

Update: On the internet, nothing is new: http://alexthunder.livejournal.com/309815.html

Fifty percent of respondents said a typical project cost between $1 million and $5 million, and 7 percent pegged it at more than $20 million.

As for labor, some 63 percent said it took less than 200 “person-months” to finish a project, while 38 percent said it took at least 2,000.

Meanwhile, more than one-third of projects are abandoned after being implemented, and only 37 percent of finished projects met users’ needs.

Analyst: In-house app development fraught with waste | InfoWorld | News | 2008-08-14 | By Chris Kanaracus, IDG News Service

I’m so glad I don’t work in corporate anymore. Brilliant leaders with strong programming and design skills are hard to find, so most corporate projects are just rudderless ships waiting for the sponsors to realise they’ve been going in circles for three years.

A: 1) Java is still way ahead of C# and always will be because it’s cross-platform, more open, and better at server stuff. Only Microsoft developers will tell you it’s the way ahead because they don’t see past the technologies they’re spoon-fed (yes, that’s meant to be inflammatory :)).

2) Focusing on specific technologies is a terrible idea, because your skills we be obsolete in a few years. If you want to improve yourself, go study computer science through a university to really understand computing or join an open source project to learn how to collaborate with programmers who are most likely smarter than you who’ll teach you more code techniques and guru-level knowledge than you’ll ever pick up in a crappy 6 month Java course.

If you truly understand computing from the machine right up to high-level organisation then any technology they can throw at you can be learned and understood quickly, but if you’ve limited your thinking to Java or C# then any paradigm shift will blind-side you and leave you on the side of the road with the Cobol developers.

Try to beat me at http://www.betterprogrammer.com

Update: Some folks have said that it’s another stupid test that expects you to know obscure details of Java syntax, but it’s definitely not. It tests your knowledge of data structures, recursion, data types, etc. So it’s more of a computer science test than a standard lame Java test.

Update 2: Maxim Glaezer, the owner and developer of betterprogrammer.com, answered my question about the number of users who have taken the test. And the results aren’t surprising.

The site started just several months ago, but since it is difficult to
motivate programmers to pass (one more) test, there are not many
registered users. A huge percentage of test takers quit after the 3rd
task, approximately 1/3 who pass the test register, other 2/3 realize
the result will not be spectacular and quit. So, there were ~600
programmers who started and completed the whole test.

I am not sure it this site ever becomes useful or popular, looks like
only 1% of all visitors dare to start the test.

So 25th out of 1800 is okay, but what worries me is that you can take the test again, which is fine if you get a bad mark, but if you keep taking the test eventually the same questions will pop up and you can just copy and paste your solutions and get 99%. Maybe a limit of 3 chances should be enforced.