I don't believe you should plan for refactoring. Any code can at some time become obsolete, be it after 2 days or 2 years. That's when you refactor it, even if it's in production. I love the notion of "good enough" to decide for or against refactoring some code. For the state problem, I often make the "mistake" to think too much in high-level states, eating up my human RAM. Ultra small time-frames let me write down some states for later retrieval and free the memory I need for a better focus on the problem at hand (and a better schedule). As AP is very much human-centered, it's not a solution but rather a "programming philosophy" that can work or not the same depending on you. Eric

Hi Do you have a good contact or address to recommend for a senior software egr in the China or HK area? I'm just going out of a bad professional experience in Shenzhen, but the mentioned area is so great on many other aspects that I would like to stay around... Thanks, Eric China PRC (out soon, hope back in as soon...)

I'm using the following, but I'm not quite sure it's a standard: Alpha: early version, not all functionality, quite unstable Beta: all functionality (or mostly), still not very stable RC: in the transition cycle, when the feature set is frozen, stable but still minor bugs RTM: transition closed, the version is really stable, all documents are up-to-date, support is transfered to 1st line Hope it helps Eric soon not anymore in China PRC

You can have a look at: http://www.elanit.com/ I don't know if they're good, though. Eric China PRC

All this sounds rather negative. I think it depends more of the people you're working with. Last year, I was in a very dynamic company were there was enough work for everybody and opportunity for personal ideas (REAL opportunities). No sleep at the office, believe me! I'm now abroad for a great but strange experience where the communications with my colleagues is very limited due to the language. The good side is the freedom I beneficiate to address the process and search for new tools, like I would do for my own company. This is highly rewarding! So my conclusion is: if you're annoyed in your company, you're probably at the wrong place! Eric

Great, I've isolated my debugging problem thanks to your help. I'm simply debugging in one thread while another thread keeps refreshing the window in my back. Of course, because I'm stepping slowly, the resources keeps buffering in the refresh and the whole thing explodes rather quickly (somewhere out of my scope, I'm afraid). At least, I know now a walkaround. Thanks again, Eric

You should try the ST_SplitterWnd from Daniel Zuppinger: http://www.codeproject.com/splitter/st\_splitterwnd.asp You can add, remove, switch panes in splitted windows. Eric

Oops, sounds similar to my problem. I have tried only Win98, and I see the same symptoms when I'm stepping into my program with the debugger. Doesn't happen in any other case... Can you describe in which circumstances you see your problem? App running alone, in Visual, in the debugger...? Thanks, Eric

Office: - Visual Studio - DIA (I need a free non-java UML tool with all 9 diagrams, but haven't found it yet) - WinCVS (way faster than VSS, but some drawbacks too) - dOxygen for documentation - CCCC for metrics (evaluating) - CppUnit for testing (I'm not giving it justice right now) - soon a bug tracking tool (not choosen yet) - still looking for a code wizard Home: - any text editor (I will test Smart Editor Pro tomorrow) - the best free/cheap IDE for the language I haven't chosen yet (most likely Ada95) - Dev-C++ IDE (I love that one, and it's free) - Poseidon UML - dOxygen & CCCC, but I hope to replace them soon Most important: use what you NEED, no more. The keypoints for me are CVS and CppUnit. I also love Dev-C++ that is free and less fuzzy that this damn VC++ and its non standard options rising unpredictable bugs. Hope it helps, Eric

Did you try GNATS, the GNU Bug Tracking System? I haven't try it yet, but we will need such a tool soon and I kept a note on it. Would love to hear the results of your prospects ;) http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~dank/gnats.html Eric

I agree. I personally revise the software development process, make some R&D (including book reading) and throw around enough vision & sometimes business cases documents to keep busy and create new projects. Sometimes this really kicks something. I'm rather surprised by even the question because I thought project managers and software engineers themselves were quite aware of how to do internal value projects or R&D in between commercial projects, making sure there is no wasted time (did I say I love my job the first 40 hours of the week?). Eric

I've faced this problem a few months ago when I decided to move to Asia. I finally landed in China without knowing one word of Chinese... In general, without the job, no visa, without the visa, no job X| . Thanks to the commonwealth, english people have an edge to get a temporary working visa in many countries. Students can easily go abroad for diploma or trainership. This is certainly the easiest way to put one foot in your future country! It will make a potential employer feel confident to hire you once graduated. Another common way to go abroad is to work a couple of years in an international company with offices both local and in the target country. Just hope that the abroad office won't be closed before you go... Of course, any door even the most unlikely can be opened if you know the right person at the right place ;). In any case, knowing the local language is a MUST for integration! Hope it helps, Eric