Marc Palmer

It continues… IDEA 5 has some fantastic new stuff in it, but like most IDEA releases it takes a while to notice the really impressive ones.

Today I found a great feature. I was coding something like this:

public class MyClass
{
   static
   {
      MY_DATA.put( "x", 5);
      MY_DATA.put( "y", 7);
   };
}

I then put the cursor on MY_DATA as it did not exist. I used CTRL-ENTER to trigger the intention window, and selected "Introduce Constant". Idea then produced this (my Java language level is 5.0):

public class MyClass
{
   private static final Map<String, Integer> MY_DATA = ;
   static
   {
      MY_DATA.put( "x", 5);
      MY_DATA.put( "y", 7);
   }
}

Notice how it not only guessed the type of the constant based on the constant’s usage, but also deduced the key and value types. Needless to say it let me autocomplete the constant assignment to new HashMap<String, Integer>()

Why is it that very simple things still aren’t implemented in mobile phones?

Maybe I’m out of date, or maybe I’m missing the rolls-royce of mobile phones, but there are some pretty basic things that I still haven’t seen in a phone (I currently have a Nokia 6230 – so last year). Nokia in my opinion clearly lead the phone user interface race, but race is a pretty kind term for it – more of a leisurely walk towards revenue-generating gizmos instead of quick and easy value-adding features for the common man!

Here’s some "no brainers" that I am still surprised do not exist on any phone I’ve seen:

1. You should be able to have the phone automatically change your profile based on the time of day. i.e. when I’m working on site it should be "General" from 7am-9am and 5pm to 10pm weekdays and all day (7am-10pm) at weekends, and "Silent" profile on weekdays 9am-5pm. Call me boring… but never again the embarrassing RIIIIIIING RIIIIING while you are in a meeting because you forgot to change profile. [I fully appreciate this is a simplistic scenario but it's a real one]
2. You should be able to assign a "breakout" of a restrictive profile for nominated callers, i.e. your wife and children.
3. When you send a text message to somebody in your phonebook, it should always use their mobile number! If you have a landline and mobile number in a contact entry, Nokias to this day still use the "default" number even if it is a landline. I don’t care if there is an SMS to speech converter on their landline, if I want to contact them there I will call them not send them an SMS.
4. When you take a picture with the camera, it should immediately say (unless you turn this off) "What do you want to do? 1. Send by MMS, 2. Send by Infra red, 3. Send by bluetooth". [oh, and 4. Upload to blog]
5. When your phone offers "Voice memo" recording, it should support "Attach audio to calendar entry" so that you can do what is natural on a phone – hear what your events are, not have to drill down and read them.

Come on phone UI guys, this stuff is really easy!

Does anyone know why software development suffers similar problems of overworking permanent employees to sectors like nursing?

As a contractor I may be limited to working only a certain number of hours per week, and have the confidence to say that my family life and "down time" are crucial to a healthy and fruitful life. The worst I can suffer is being given notice on my contract if I object to any coercion to work silly hours, although interestingly I am rarely pushed into that situation perhaps simply by virtue of being a contractor.

However it’s not an unusual sight: permanent workers working many hours past normal close of business often for no overtime payment. It’s hard to fathom what’s going on. You could speculate that it is loyalty to the company or colleagues, or a desire to maintain one’s image as "the guru". Or is it the strange addictive nature of programming – where despite having a nice partner to go home to, films to watch, friends to see, you can often find yourself voluntarily stuck in front of the screen at midnight?

The sad thing is that we all know that the best work is not done under these conditions, especially not when overworking is prolonged. Happy people are better workers. Slogging away day after day doesn’t make happy people.

There seems to be a particular culture in England where bosses do not let themselves realise this basic fact. I’m confident England would be a much better place to live if we stopped trailblazing Europe as one of the "hardest working" countries (you could read that as least productive) with such ridiculously long hours. It’s one thing if you’re self-employed and profit directly from all the effort, but relying on the little guys in the company in that way just isn’t on in my book.