Author: Paul Sinnett
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Confirmation bias
I recently read a paper on confirmation bias: the tendency to focus on information that corroborates theories and dismiss information that contradicts them. It explained a general problem that I’ve noticed with many scientific studies (particularly in the field of software development) but I hadn’t been able to identify.
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The rising cost of dying
When my Nan recently died, my parents got an education in the cost of dying. For example, if you want a cremation, you have to get forms signed by two doctors. Each signature will cost you about £60. My parents were told that this was due to the case of Doctor Shipman. A little research…
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Networking
A post on one of the game developer newsgroups suggested that I got myself LinkedIn. It’s only when you do something like this that you realise just how many contacts you have in the business.
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A lesson from the school of virtual life
I was half watching some movie; I don’t recall what it was. There was a father and son chat going on regurgitating the usual cliches, “you have to live your own life,” “you only have one life to live,” or something like that. It got me thinking about the different way we live our lives…
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The best tester I ever worked with
Reading an entry on James Bach’s blog reminded me of the best tester I ever worked with. It got me thinking about how he did it.
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Avoiding timing defects
My recent study of the defects that slipped through reviews but were found during testing show an interesting pattern: they were almost all due to timing issues. Could a change of programming style reduce those errors?
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Look for the EPEAT mark
I got a message from the IEEE. It appears that we’re finally going to be getting a standard mark to look for when buying green computers.
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On PSP and code reviews
Since reading about the PSP, I have continued to collect statistics. However, last week I decided to collect additional statistics related the the practice of reviewing code before compilation. The goal of this practice is to catch 100% of your compile errors before compilation by reading through the code. I was unsure about the wisdom…
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Progress quest
A comment on digg about an article on the lack of role playing in the modern RPG led me to this great little indie game.
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I’ve been trying out the PSP
that’s the software process, not the handheld. I’ve been reading Introduction to the Personal Software Process by Watts S. Humphrey (the creator of the process.) And I’ve been putting it into practice by gathering statistics on my current project.