Strategic Developer

How to test developer, data science, and devops job candidates

Even if they can show you code on GitHub, you want your finalists to do a trial project as a real, objective test. Here are the test projects you should use

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jun 7, 2018 5 mins

Careers Data Science Devops

5 reasons why your code is running so slowly—and how to fix it

Here’s how to address why the code runs well on your development machine but has totally borked in production.

By Andrew C. Oliver

May 31, 2018 6 mins

App Testing Databases Software Development

Virtual assistants don’t need developers or AI

Virtual assistants could do so much more for enterprises, if only we’d realize they are essentially command-line interfaces that don’t require custom coding or AI tech to work

By Andrew C. Oliver

May 24, 2018 3 mins

Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Software Development

How to find a developer job after coding bootcamp

If you want a real developer job, a coding bootcamp won’t get you in the door. But if you add some real experience, you’ve got a shot. Here’s how to get that experience

By Andrew C. Oliver

May 3, 2018 4 mins

Careers Developer Software Development

How to use the Google Vision API

Happy or sad? Cat or person? Use the Google API to detect details about images

By Andrew C. Oliver

Apr 26, 2018 6 mins

APIs Software Development

11 signs you’re writing great code

No matter what language or technology stack you use, if you can describe your code with these adjectives, good code should follow

By Andrew C. Oliver

Apr 12, 2018 6 mins

Software Development

How to get started with AI—before it’s too late

Put these five prerequisites in place so you can actually execute on your artificial intelligence strategy

By Andrew C. Oliver

Apr 5, 2018 6 mins

Artificial Intelligence Careers Machine Learning

The programming languages you should learn now

if you're in the market for a new lingua franca, what you choose next might be influenced by your current language of choice

By Andrew C. Oliver

Mar 22, 2018 10 mins

HTML Java JavaScript

Arduino plus 3D printing: The next big developer wave

3D printing will likely change manufacturing and even how products reach the home. Meanwhile, Arduino devices make electronic creation accessible to anyone with a laptop computer

By Andrew C. Oliver

Mar 8, 2018 3 mins

Software Development Technology Industry

Introduction to Learning to Rank (LTR) search analysis

The technique can fix search results based on user preferences or implicit behavior

By Andrew C. Oliver

Mar 2, 2018 3 mins

Analytics Software Development

Artificial general intelligence (AGI): The steps to true AI

Early AI research tackled the challenge the wrong way, but there’s now progress around machine intuition, unsupervised learning, and creativity

By Andrew C. Oliver

Feb 22, 2018 5 mins

Analytics Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning

A quick-and-dirty way to predict human behavior

The Alternating Least Squares (ALS) technique is fundamental to many machine learning applications. Here’s how it works

By Andrew C. Oliver

Feb 16, 2018 3 mins

Analytics Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning

How classification and clustering work: the easy way

People are often confused about what these are and what the difference is. So here is an explanation using the old-fashioned way: in an Excel spreadsheet

By Andrew C. Oliver

Feb 1, 2018 3 mins

Analytics Machine Learning Software Development

The future of coding is about making real things

As AI and manufacturing come together through 3D printing, we coders will come in charge of how things are actually made

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jan 25, 2018 3 mins

Machine Learning Software Development

Coding bootcamps are too expensive. Take these online courses instead

A motivated self-learner can do a lot better on the online Coursera service, which has improved in recent years

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jan 18, 2018 4 mins

Careers IT Skills Software Development

An intro to Studio 3T, a MongoDB IDE

The growing third-party market is a key indication that MongoDB has moved from mere maturity to one of the dominant players in this market

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jan 11, 2018 2 mins

Data Visualization Databases Development Tools

6 New Year’s resolutions for avoiding IT disasters

Let’s look at putting into place practices that will avoid the follies of yesteryear. At the same time, let’s look to the future and start putting into place practices that make us better

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jan 5, 2018 6 mins

Software Development

The right technology strategy for modern retail

Retailers are both specializing and having to understand their customers better and develop a closer relationship with them

By Andrew C. Oliver

Dec 25, 2017 8 mins

Databases Software Development

Wikipedia is great, but these charities need your help more

WIkipedia has a ton of money, but many great charities do not. Please contribute to these eight education-focused charities first

By Andrew C. Oliver

Dec 21, 2017 5 mins

Careers

In the rush to big data, we forgot about search

In the cloud era, we need to look at search to be the glue that lets us find the data and analyze it together, no matter where it lives

By Andrew C. Oliver

Dec 14, 2017 4 mins

Analytics Cloud Computing Data Management

Hybrid cloud is a necessity. Here’s how to start

Going hybrid is one vendor pitch you should take seriously as you begin moving your infrastructure and apps to the cloud

By Andrew C. Oliver

Nov 30, 2017 5 mins

Cloud Computing Hybrid Cloud

10 worries that should keep every developer up at night (2018 edition)

If you thought that 2016 was tough and that 2017 was a wild ride, get in your bunker and wait out 2018

By Andrew C. Oliver

Nov 9, 2017 6 mins

Software Development

This tech would let Facebook and Google stop fake news now

The financial services industry already has antifraud tools that, coupled with established spam detection tools, could put an end to Russian efforts to influence our elections

By Andrew C. Oliver

Nov 2, 2017 4 mins

Data and Information Security Malware Technology Industry

What a modern development organization looks like

Find out if your development tools and methods match up to today’s state of the practice—and how that practice will evolve

By Andrew C. Oliver

Oct 12, 2017 5 mins

Software Development

What developers need to know about concurrency models

Multiprocess, multithreaded, and nonblocking/event-driven approaches affect how you develop and run software that has processes working at the same time.

By Andrew C. Oliver

Oct 5, 2017 5 mins

Software Development

When AI takes our jobs, only developers stand a chance

AI, robots, and other automation could put most of humanity on the dole as the jobs evaporate. But these careers could keep you comfortably employed

By Andrew C. Oliver

Sep 28, 2017 4 mins

Artificial Intelligence Developer Machine Learning

How to set up Zeppelin for analytics and visualization

The open source notebook for analytics and visualization is highly capable. Here’s how to get it up and running in Amazon’s EC2

By Andrew C. Oliver

Sep 22, 2017 8 mins

Analytics Machine Learning Open Source

10 tips for better search queries in Apache Solr

Get started with Solr’s specialized search query functions such as filter queries and faceting

By Andrew C. Oliver

Sep 15, 2017 5 mins

Databases SQL Software Development

Windows Amazon EC2 tutorial: How to set up an EC2 instance

EC2 has changed quite a bit in the last five years, so whether you are new to EC2 or an old hand, it’s worth a look at how to launch your own EC2 instances today

By Andrew C. Oliver

Sep 8, 2017 10 mins

Cloud Computing Small and Medium Business Software Development

Linux Amazon EC2 tutorial: How to set up an EC2 instance

EC2 has changed quite a bit in the last five years, so whether you are new to EC2 or an old hand, it’s worth a look at how to launch your own EC2 instances today

By Andrew C. Oliver

Aug 31, 2017 9 mins

Cloud Computing

15 noob mistakes even experienced developers still make

In the 20-plus years I've been at it, I've seen it all. But mostly I've seen the same mistakes over and over again

By Andrew C. Oliver

Aug 24, 2017 8 mins

Software Development

The good software development manifesto

Software development is more than knowing what APIs to call or basic syntax. Here’s the whole picture of what app development really is

By Andrew C. Oliver

Aug 10, 2017 4 mins

Careers Software Development

Chatops for the modern developer, courtesy of Spring’s founder

Java Spring Framework creator Rod Johnson sees chatops as the next step for Slack-esconced developers to make life cycle management much easier

By Andrew C. Oliver

Aug 3, 2017 7 mins

JavaScript Small and Medium Business Software Development

9 crushing performance problems in scalable systems

We have no shortage of ways to slow complex systems to a crawl. Fix these nine, and a tenth will be along soon

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jul 27, 2017 6 mins

Databases Java NoSQL Databases

What is Apache Solr? And why you should use it

Apache Solr is both a search engine and a distributed document database with SQL support. Here's how to get started

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jul 20, 2017 8 mins

Databases NoSQL Databases Software Development

Which Spark machine learning API should you use?

A brief introduction to Spark MLlib's APIs for basic statistics, classification, clustering, and collaborative filtering, and what they can do for you

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jul 14, 2017 5 mins

Analytics Apache Spark Machine Learning

12 ‘hot’ technologies not living up to the hype

A dozen technologies that will disappoint you soon, if they aren't disappointing you already

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jul 6, 2017 6 mins

Devops Hadoop JavaScript

The rules for REST: How to be RESTful in HTTP/JSON APIs

It’s easy to get sloppy in your APIs, so here’s a refresher on how to be correctly RESTful in your client scripts

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jun 29, 2017 4 mins

APIs Software Development Web Development

Benchmarks, analyst reports, and other pretenses

Keep the these four facts in mind when assessing how much you should trust “independent” evaluations

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jun 22, 2017 6 mins

Careers

9 shell tips every developer should know

Every wizened Unix hacker will have his or her own special tool set for using the command line for dev-fu. Here are mine

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jun 15, 2017 7 mins

Software Development

The 10 tools every modern developer should use

No matter what language you use or platforms you support, there is a core set of tools everyone needs to have

By Andrew C. Oliver

Jun 8, 2017 4 mins

Development Tools Software Development

A full-stack developer is full of something, alright

Most applications we develop are stupidly simple, so almost anyone can do them. Too bad our dev tools don’t work that part of the stack well

By Andrew C. Oliver

May 25, 2017 4 mins

Software Development

Forgot about Mahout? It’s back, and worth your attention

Mahout is a vibrant machine learning project that is now riding Spark instead of MapReduce for the algorithmically inclined

By Andrew C. Oliver

May 18, 2017 5 mins

Machine Learning Software Development

Choose one: High productivity or code you can maintain

No matter how you slice it, there's always a trade-off between speedy development and ultrareliable applications

By Andrew C. Oliver

May 11, 2017 4 mins

Agile Development Developer Jakarta EE

The future of IoT can be seen in the PC

IoT exhibits many of the same growing pains as the PC in its early days, with the greatest potential lurking in barely imagined future apps

By Andrew C. Oliver

May 4, 2017 4 mins

Analytics Technology Industry

AI, Amazon, Uber: 10 tech predictions for 2022

In the next five years, half of the crazy new stuff you've heard about will arrive. The other half will have to wait

By Andrew C. Oliver

Apr 27, 2017 5 mins

Amazon.com Small and Medium Business Technology Industry

Data science could keep United out of more trouble

The right data analytics can sometimes prevent you from doing stupid things that alienate your customers

By Andrew C. Oliver

Apr 20, 2017 4 mins

Analytics Data Management Data Science

13 tips to foil cloud lock-in

Public cloud vendors want your workloads forever. Here's how to create a viable exit strategy

By Andrew C. Oliver

Apr 13, 2017 4 mins

IaaS PaaS Web Development

H-1B clampdown won’t fix developers’ real problem

The way things are going, well-intentioned visa reforms will exacerbate offshoring while making most development too costly for most businesses

By Andrew C. Oliver

Apr 6, 2017 8 mins

Careers Developer Open Source

Coders, here’s a JavaScript presentation tool you’ll love

Attention all technical presenters: At last, a slideshow tool for you! With the open source library Remark.js, you build presentations fast using Markdown

By Andrew C. Oliver

Mar 30, 2017 5 mins

HTML JavaScript Technology Industry

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Strategic Developer

How to test developer, data science, and devops job candidates

5 reasons why your code is running so slowly—and how to fix it

Virtual assistants don’t need developers or AI

How to find a developer job after coding bootcamp

How to use the Google Vision API

11 signs you’re writing great code

How to get started with AI—before it’s too late

The programming languages you should learn now

Arduino plus 3D printing: The next big developer wave

Introduction to Learning to Rank (LTR) search analysis

Artificial general intelligence (AGI): The steps to true AI

A quick-and-dirty way to predict human behavior

How classification and clustering work: the easy way

The future of coding is about making real things

Coding bootcamps are too expensive. Take these online courses instead

An intro to Studio 3T, a MongoDB IDE

6 New Year’s resolutions for avoiding IT disasters

The right technology strategy for modern retail

Wikipedia is great, but these charities need your help more

In the rush to big data, we forgot about search

Hybrid cloud is a necessity. Here’s how to start

10 worries that should keep every developer up at night (2018 edition)

This tech would let Facebook and Google stop fake news now

What a modern development organization looks like

What developers need to know about concurrency models

When AI takes our jobs, only developers stand a chance

How to set up Zeppelin for analytics and visualization

10 tips for better search queries in Apache Solr

Windows Amazon EC2 tutorial: How to set up an EC2 instance

Linux Amazon EC2 tutorial: How to set up an EC2 instance

15 noob mistakes even experienced developers still make

The good software development manifesto

Chatops for the modern developer, courtesy of Spring’s founder

9 crushing performance problems in scalable systems

What is Apache Solr? And why you should use it

Which Spark machine learning API should you use?

12 ‘hot’ technologies not living up to the hype

The rules for REST: How to be RESTful in HTTP/JSON APIs

Benchmarks, analyst reports, and other pretenses

9 shell tips every developer should know

The 10 tools every modern developer should use

A full-stack developer is full of something, alright

Forgot about Mahout? It’s back, and worth your attention

Choose one: High productivity or code you can maintain

The future of IoT can be seen in the PC

AI, Amazon, Uber: 10 tech predictions for 2022

Data science could keep United out of more trouble

13 tips to foil cloud lock-in

H-1B clampdown won’t fix developers’ real problem

Coders, here’s a JavaScript presentation tool you’ll love

Show me more

Databricks adds Data Science Agent to automate analytics tasks

Rust Innovation Lab launched, sponsors first project

PostgreSQL 18 to boost OLTP performance, but misses AI readiness

Getting encryption wrong (and getting it right, too)

How to build a native desktop app vs. a web UI app

PyApp: Build click-to-run Python apps with Rust