Three weeks ago, I completed a project for a guy. My former CEO gave him a good reference.
The whole time I was doing work for this guy, I gave him updates he could see, and told him he needed to make sure to tell me if there were any changes he needed.
At the end, he told me it looked awesome, exactly what he wanted, and he would send me a check. The next day, he had his buddy check it out, and realized there were a bunch of changes he needed.
I told him I would continue working on this project--to implement these changes--as long as he paid me for the work thus far that he had commissioned.
He's now MIA, doesn't reply to my emails or my phone calls. I've put $2,000 worth of work into this.
Should I try to collect on this? If so, how? Should I take him to small claims court? Forget about it? What?
Contact a lawyer.
And in the future, don't provide the finished product to a new client unless you have been paid. Oh, and try and get paid a certain amount in advance. Set up your contract so that there are "stages", after each stage is completed, you get paid a certain amount.
But right now, talk to a lawyer.
Send him a written invoice first before getting heavy. If you act professionally, then he might realise you mean business and wont be pushed around.
Very bad on the contractor's part. This is always the problem when you are working individually or is a small company.
Try putting pressure using someone whom you both know. Try talking to him personally.
For future if you want to work as contractor on small (small budget/small timeline) project you should try getting work from Odesk or other sites working as mediator between developers and contractors.
All the other advice is good.
The best advice given to me by my lawyer is that contacts are almost worthless, it's all about who you do business with. I've been stiffed a few times in ~15 years of contact work of up to $30K. Sad, but it's part of the business. Try to do business with people you trust. Don't do anything with people who you have bad feelings about.
I had a similar experience many years ago and looked into using small claims. Now this is the UK so is almost certainly different in the US. It turned out that, even if you are successful, you aren't guaranteed payment. If they refuse to pay it will turn up in any credit checks they undertake in the future and that's about the only downside for them. It's an awful lot of work for a small chance of getting the money. Employing a lawyer is just more cost for you, if you could find one that is willing to take it on.
I know it sounds tough but that's my personal experience - in the end I just left it unpaid and made sure I always highlighted the fact to anyone who'd listen (it was fifteen or so years ago, guy called Terry something or other and he worked for Jumping Bean doing pub quiz machine software).
Bite the bullet and move on with your life. Can't get blood from the stone. Lawyers wouldn't take this case on contingency basis, and any filings turn into more expences on your part.
Just write an email and a letter to your former CEO (cc the bad guy too) explaining how unprofessional that guy is.
At least you stopped working at that point... some people I've heard have kept on working thinking this will help them get paid. Don't do it!
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Closed 12 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Business Case for Resharper
I've just recently graduated and I'm working for my first company. During college, one of my professors had every computer loaded with Resharper and I loved it! I bought myself a personal license for it and have been using it ever since.
But at my new job, only a select few (senior developers mostly) are using Resharper. When I asked my supervisor to buy a license for myself, I was shot down because "it won't improve the productivity of level 1 programmers".
I've tried showing them that Resharper is only a fraction of a programmer's salary and it'll make my life as a programmer easier. But unfortunately, my words fell on deaf ears. Is there any case or argument that I can bring to my supervisor to show them that it will increase my productivity?
"it won't improve the productivity of level 1 programmers"
Gotta tell you up front, there's not much hope with people who say things that ridiculous. This is tantamount to saying "Visual Studio isn't worth the cost for junior developers, they can use Notepad.
In my experience, anyone who asks for Resharper (or any other productivity tool) is probably going to make good use of it because they know already what it's going to give them.
The people it won't help is people who don't know what it offers and aren't surrounded by people who help each other. I've been using it for years now and I still keep finding new features that save me time. Even if you're not the kind of person to get all the benefits, in a decent sized project, Find Type and Ctrl-Click alone pay for the license.
I guess you could try that argument. Or you could try the long-term approach - the longer someone is given resharper for, the more benefit they get from it, so why wait until you're a senior and waste that learning curve then. Or you could try the argument that being a lowly level 1 developer you're going to need help from seniors and they're going to be less inclined to come to your machine if it is less functional.
But honestly, I don't see any argument that's going to get past someone who says things like that. I'm thinking the only thing going through their mind is: if I don't invest in making my seniors happy, they leave (or worse, go over my head to my boss); if I don't invest in my juniors, they don't. I doubt the productivity argument has ever washed.
I feel for you. Best advice I really have is that this is your first lesson in questions to ask at interviews when you do move on. My guess is you'll be learning a lot of things about how to spot companies you don't want to work for.
Incidentally, that was part of the argument I made when asking for licenses for my team (which wasn't a tough fight - one email): if resharper does nothing else, it attracts good developers to your company.
If you already have a personal license, I don't think anything prevents you from using it also at work, provided that your company allows you installing it... http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/buy/license-matrix.jsp
Your supervisor is an idiot.
Do the maths: Work out how much it costs your company to run you per minute (your salary, plus all the overheads like your computer equipment and software, electricity, accomodation. You can probably roughly double your salary). You'll probably find that saving around 1-2 minutes per day will pay back the cost of Resharper to your company in a year. So if you can convince your manager that you will save 2 minutes or 5 minutes or 10 minutes a day, you can show him that he'll be saving money in only a few months.
Remind him that with this sort of tool you are likely to make fewer mistakes - especially as you are inexperienced. How much does it cost to find and fix each bug that could have been avoided with Resharper? $25? $50? And of course, using Resharper will help inexperienced programmers to learn how to code better. So it's a training tool too. In these senses, it's actually of more use to trainees than it is to experienced programmers.
If your company considers Resharper worth getting for anybody, then the only reason not to get it for everyone is if you have such a tight budget that you can't afford to buy it now even though you know it will save you lots of money in the medium term.
They probably doubt that you will make any worth while use of it, and they have summed up that the avarage gain from a level 1 programmer is very little. This is obviously a generalisation, so you should prove them wrong.
Make a list of some of the features that you use in resharper demonstrating that you know Resharpers features, and for each estimate how much time you save pr. use.
Add reference and add import statement (xx seconds)
Move class to namespace (xx seconds)
Generate property, method, field etc. (xx seconds)
...
...
etc.
And then make a wild guess how many times you do that a day, and add it conservatively up to minutes a day.
Then figure out how much this saved time equals in cash a month, and counter that with the cost of Resharper. I bet it will be painfully obvious, that it would be a bad idea not to give you a Resharper license.
You can spice it up with code qualitiy increases from the statical code analysis.
If they still doubt you, give them a demo of some of the time saving features.
If you want to use resharper, why not just buy a license for yourself? Will they let you use it if you buy your own (non-personal) license? Perhaps it could be a deductable business cost?
Otherwise, I'd suggest trying to get support from those in the company who already use it.
Perhaps you could also explain your prior experience in using it previously, or give them a demonstration of how it speeds up your ability to implement code? Let them see for themselves, since they have labelled it as "no benefit to a level 1 programmer" - prove them wrong!
I'm doing some job interviews for the first time for my replacement. I want to know how they would approach a brownfields project, but am not really sure how to phrase the question.
I'd like to know what their attitude is: e.g. throw out and rewrite, use a tool to refactor, step through the code and understand, what books they've read (e.g. "Working Effectively with Legacy Code").
How do you find out how someone takes on brownfields software development?
When interviewing, try to engage in scenario brainstorming or role playing, not definition swapping. In this case try to engage an applicant in telling their story about what they would expect "...when taking over responsibility for the main finance system, which this department and that group use daily for these things, and there are a couple things that are wrong with it today, and oh by the way, there is a upgrade release scheduled for three months from now that will allow direct integration with this new banking partner for 1099 processing". Make the scenario specific and real for your situation, and get them talking.
The important thing is to draw out from them not only what they would do, but almost as importantly, what they know to expect. If your candidate sits across from you and weaves a story about getting up to speed in a couple days and making major changes up through production by next Friday, without asking any of the important questions and impressing you with their effectiveness, doubt their experience (and if you are in a regulated industry or, unfortunately, Big Company, possibly their sanity). If instead they ask good questions about what the environment is like today, what's the review process, who makes the decisions about functionality, is there a testing environment, is the code testable or are there unit tests (gasp) in place, and what happens today if a change needs to get in place by Friday - hey, they've probably been here and done this before.
You of course want to hear how they would make sure existing functionality works and time bombs aren't being set but you also want to hear them making reference to things they would be doing so that this project becomes better, easier to work with, and more fun over time. The activities they specifically are engaging in to turn the inherited legacy project into a rocking world of fun should come through in their storytelling. I mean, they are planning on doing that, right?
Great interviews are conversations and experience sharing and story telling. Draw those stories out, bounce them against the b.s. shield, and go.
This sounds like a great interview question. Why not just ask them
what steps they'd take on inheriting/maintaining/extending a badly written legacy codebase, or how do you determine when a codebase needs to be refactored? Another option would be to give them a medium sized piece of spaghetti code and ask them how they'd extend it.
Lots of good suggestions for answers here.
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Closed 11 years ago.
I'm dealing with an issue with my current employer that has seriously made me consider seeking employment elsewhere. They are under the impression that 100% of custom development should be eliminated and replaced with COTS products, such as SharePoint. While I realize that this is not a realistic expectation, I've found it impossible to argue my points with the people in management that share these views. Their argument usually involves something along the lines of a feature already existing in SharePoint that covers feature X, therefore there is less risk involved and testing doesn't have to be done against it.
Case in point, we have a situation where a SharePoint list is completely incapable of meeting customer expectations and requirements. Saving this data in a SQL database, however, would easily satisfy the requirements. Any time our development team suggests going outside of the boundaries of SharePoint, however, management goes up in flames about how every line of code adds to the complexity of the project and increases risk. While this is certainly true in some situations, it's not always the case. Their argument, however, is that since SharePoint provides a mechanism for storing data, that we should use it 100% of the time. Regardless of if it meets customer requirements, or not.
I've gotten to the point that I hate coming to work because I'm constantly forced into doing things that I know (with 100% certainty) are not right and that could be made right by doing custom development. It's simply what seems to be an impossible argument where I work, however.
Have any of you experienced a similar situation? If so, what have you done to work through these challenges?
If you don't share the vision of the company and if you can't enlighten them then sure, it is a good time to start looking.
Have you pointed out that there is risk in forcing a "solution" on a client that does not help them or is missing functionality or is unusable?
Perhaps come up with plans to address and mitigate their perceived risks.
You document your concerns and let those above you know them, and then you do as they ask. If it doesn't work, you have documentation that you brought the concerns up. But try to make it work their way, so it doesn't look like you're trying to undermine their plans. They're taking the greater risk, and thus they get the greater responsibility. Try your best to make it work their way, and quit worrying about it.
This may sound bad and may not be the answer you want. There is a little known division in my office called "The Skunk Works." People, on their own accord (usually during lunch breaks or compile time) decide to write little programs that help the company. The fun things about this is the result doesn't "cost" the company anything.
The conversation usually goes like this:
"We need to buy this software" -Boss
"But, we have had that thing for months. John, wrote that back in the day" -Programmer
"?" -Boss
A lot of times the developers see a decision as being bad and just create a parallel process that happens automatically. Then, when the stuff hits the fan and the customers are frustrated, the alternate solution is ALREADY in place.
I have an example of an auto release machine. Developers used to create these custom reports. As our customers increased, the developer's workload increased. The problem was "In order for the customer to get the custom report developer had to be involved." So, while the company was looking into hiring someone to do reports full time or to find ways to have the customers do them, I wrote an auto release machine that looks for report changes and releases them directly to the customer. I also wrote a utility that allows anybody to make changes to the reports that was easier to use than what the developer has. When the Boss made the announcement of trying to find a solution, I told him that it was already in place and that even he could make changes to reports and get them released. Now, everybody can change reports, usually it is management and customer support who make these changes. The fun side is that developers arn't involved anymore.
Just do it. If you're going to quit anyways, might as well try.
Does someone in management own stock in SharePoint? Was the system developed by the CEO's younger brother?
If they are that resilient to change, you should find out the real reason before trying to argue with them. They may claim that there is added complexity, difficulty testing, etc, but if you can counter every argument with one that shows their position, with all due respect, to be misinformed, and they still won't discuss, then you may be arguing the wrong point.
If they are locked into the technology because of a non-technical reason, such as someone once read that SharePoint is the ultimate in any technical situation (and, of course, had no clue what the article was talking about other than SharePoint = good) then you shouldn't bother trying to argue and save your energy. For the job hunt.
Prove it to them. When the requirements ask for a list that can handle 100,000 items with a multi-column sort - write a script that adds 100,000 test items into a sharepoint list and let them try it, preferrably with the "customer" requesting the list watching. :-)
I would definitely get my resume out and into the open if I were you. Not only is the experience that you are currently having frustrating, it can really hurt your career development over the long haul. Just think about it. While you are languishing with your current employer in your current position, other developers are adopting new technologies and expanding their experience.
There is such a thing as ideological differences between developers and what a company's idea of a role for a developer is. If open discussion and candor get you nowhere, you will not be faulted for a lack of effort. Loyalty to a company is a good thing, but the relationship needs to be a two-way street.
Sadly, the will eventually probably come to realize that they are wrong in their assumptions - but you can not wait for that day to come. Sometimes it never comes. In particular (and don't get me wrong, I love SharePoint when it is used for what it is intended for), SharePoint is become the next Access, in that people who read management magazines see enough of it thrown around to call it the messiah.
I find that there is typically no way of 'winning' these debates through talk alone. Many managers form an opinion of a product or solution through reading management oriented articles. See if you can find some counter-articles.
If you can cite examples of things which SharePoint is incapable of doing, and show examples of how you can cost effectively solve these problems through custom development then you are well on your way.
The mistake is to try and make this a conversation about technology, it's not, its about efficiency, cost effectiveness and maintainability - those are the mantras and metrics which will sway non-technical managers into considering alternatives.
If you can put together a proof of concept for some of these issues so much the better, eye candy really helps to sell outside of technical teams.
Finally, good luck :)
I am doing the same thing at my current job, there is no easy way to deal with this kind of situation. All I have been able to do is swallow my arguments, cause they have gotten me no where, and do as required by my management. This off course will go against your basic programmer nature of using the best solution for the task at hand, and maybe getting to build something cool in the process, but since they are the boss it is really your only solution. You could try to site cases, with evidence, where it makes more sense to use custom solutions. But if you boss is anything like mine, it won't get very far before the screaming match begins. The only other solution is dusting off that resume and finding a new job.
I have faced the same kind of challenges right from day one. Management have a natural reluctance to add custom code to the solution. However in most cases it has been posible to explain than the right solution for the customer would include some custom code.
Remember, if you argue that you can include the custom code in the common codebase, then the boss might approve the idea.
I really feel your pain.
If it was me I would use my spare time to collect information that proves my point and document it in a easy to understand way.
If they only understand money, talk money, if they only understand fear (doing "this" because they are scared of "that"), use the fear, finding scary thing for them in "their" solution.
Document every new implementation, the time, money and problem that arises. And document what your solution would be instead.
They probably doesn't see the problem in their solution, because they focus on not having problems in "your" solution.
I have worked in a place where management were not constructive in their approach, not quite as bad as you describe, but bad enough.
There are a couple of options. One is to go ahead and do what needs to be done for the client with the best "value for money" option you can. You will probably have to get the developers together as a team to make this "civil disobedience" work.
A more forceful approach that will really make the shit hit the fan is to go to the client (don't do this if it is an external client or if you wish to keep your job) and lay out what is going to happen to this project if X and Y. This is pretty much telling tales out of school and is going to be bad, but entertaining.
A slightly better way is to go up the chain and get a sponsor who can make shit happen for you. Essentially go behind your boss(es) back. This may work, but it is going to have predictable results for your relationship with your management.
Last and hardest is to identify the person who holds the view that any custom code is bad and engage them in conversation to find out where they got the belief and counter that with examples. Emphasis on conversation as you will have to listen to and understand their underlying concerns (which won't be about custom code per se) and only address them after you gain that persons trust.
I cannot tell you which way of doing things is going to work best because it depends so much on the individuals involved. All I do know is that you cannot change people and in my experience the best way to solve the problem so far has been to leave and work with people who are not so...
how about not calling it custom code. If instead you call it 'anticipated SharePoint user extensions' or something it may soften the misconception surrounding a specific term.
also, as has been said, there may be other hidden from you reasons that management is pushing this agenda. It is probably best to not second guess these too quickly, as many would be valid.
Finally, there are alot of places that need development. it doesnt hurt to look for a better match.
good luck.
This question already has answers here:
How do you protect your software from illegal distribution? [closed]
(22 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
Besides open-sourcing your project and legislation, are there ways to prevent, or at least minimize the damages of code leaking outside your company/group?
We obviously can't block Internet access (to prevent emailing the code) because programmer's need their references. We also can't block peripheral devices (USB, Firewire, etc.)
The code matters most when it has some proprietary algorithms and in-house developed knowledge (as opposed to regular routine code to draw GUIs, connect to databases, etc.), but some applications (like accounting software and CRMs) are just that: complex collections of routine code that are simple to develop in principle, but will take years to write from scratch. This is where leaked code will come in handy to competitors.
As far as I see it, preventing leakage relies almost entirely on human process. What do you think? What precautions and measures are you taking? And has code leakage affected you before?
You can't stop it getting out. So two solutions - stop people wanting to hurt you, and have legal precautions. To stop people hating you treat them right (saying more is probably off topic for stack overflow).
I'm not a lawyer, but to give yourself legal protection, if you believe in it, patent the ideas, put a copyright notice in the code, and make sure the contracts for your programmers specify carefully intellectual property rights.
But at the end of the day, the answer is run quicker than the competition.
Unless you're working with something highly classified and given that you can't block email and USB devices I guess you aren't there's really not to much damage to be had even if the source code leaks. The thing is, what is the code, or parts of it worth without the knowledge of how it works and the organization around it.
In general the value of "source" is much less than is commonly touted, basicly the source without the people or the organization isn't worth the storage it occupies for a competitor.
Also, you're missing the most likely attack vector, and it's also the one you can't stop no matter what. If someone really really want's to know how you made your magic then they'll try to hire your developers away, and since you can't stop them from having information inside their skull and even if they turn in all their possesions ther knowledge and domain expertise is leaving with them. Basicly employee retention and trust is the only way. Sorry.
I don't know how much actual help this is going to be, but:
Don't p*ss your programmers off. Don't get them in a position where they want to give the source to a competitor. Most places undervalue their developers. Given where you are (SO), I guess you are less likely to. Nothing got to me more than seeing the sales folks out for games of golf - paid, and paid for, by the company - while we had to fight to get pizza once a month.
Really, if your direct competitors got your code today, what would it do? Is your product or vertical market that stagnant that you wouldn't release newer, better versions before they could react? Is there no room for innovation? Most companies overvalue their "proprietary algorithms and in-house developed knowledge". Sure, it may cut some time off, but it's only about 10% of the problem.
If you got all the source for all your competitors products, how much actual use would it be? I'd guess it would set you back months. Not forward. Back.
If you had a clean system, and little external/internal knowledge, how long would it take you to get your own product into a buildable state? How long would it take to drill down into the code and workout what is going on? How much time and money would you waste trying to work something out, rather than spending time and money on how to make your product work better?
I've actually been in the position of having all the source - 1million lines+ of code - to a competitor's product. We did nothing with it - aside from a bit of a poke-around and then delete it, which was more than I was comfortable with - but I would expect that we'd have chewed up months of time just to get to where they were then.
So we nuked it, slapped the id10t who got it (yes, a developer/PM who came over from the other company), and thought about how to make our product kick so much butt that it didn't matter what they did. Much better use of time. Worked well, too. We had differentiators, not just re-hashing the same features in the same way they did them.
Sorry, but there is no way you can stop people getting stuff out, and still be able to actually work. You can stop them wanting to do it, or make it so there is no value to them having it.
We were worried about people decompiling our code too. We stopped worrying when we realised that WE had enough trouble working out what was going on inside 500K+ lines of C#, C++ and HTML code talking to MAPI/Exchange. If someone can decompile it and work it out, then we want to hire them......
BTW, for clarity, and given who I now work for, I should point out this is not my current employer. This was quite a while ago.
The code does not leak out on itself. It takes people to take it. There are obviously some security measures you might use like traffic analysis and lock-down on the repositories so only authorized developers can connect to it.
But by the end of the day your best option is to make sure that no one WANTS to steal from you. Your team has to be happy, they have to be proud to work for your they have to be loyal to the company and to each other. If you have such team it's a simple question of explaining to everyone that the code has to be protected from outsiders. It will not stop a dedicated mole but will prevent accidents.
P.S. And yes, proper clauses in the contracts would not harm as well, at least they will make sure that the developers are AWARE that taking code outside is morally wrong.
Follow these guidelines and it shouldn't matter if the contents of your entire source code repository is posted all over stackoverflow:
http://geocities.com/mdetting/unmaintainable.html
Oh, and show your developers that you don't trust them by blocking access to parts of the source code, scanning outgoing/incoming email etc. That is a surefire way to make them want to stay around... ...nothing improves morale like a bit of mistrust in the workplace.
Another cool way is to tell one half that they are "team a" and name the other half as the untrustworthy "team b". Then reverse it and say the same thing to the "team b" members. Encourage them to keep an eye on the "bad guys" in the other team and to report any signs of illoyalty to you. Sprinkle a few "conflict inducers" (e.g. tell "Joe": 'do you know what Ed says about you behind your back?') etc. Works wonders if you set up the developers against each other and create a few [invented-by-you] conflicts here and there...
(Eh, and no, I don't actually recommend any of the above. Just kidding. But I have seen people use all of the tactics above. And it didn't work.)
Okay, I am going to be a little practical here.
Being nice to everybody and hoping they won't hurt you doesn't work.
Every programmer knows from the day he joins a company that he'll not stay there forever. He will change when he's learned enough to get a better opportunity.
The programmers who write the code believe that they have the ownership to it even if they wrote it on the time they rented out to somebody else. So many of them will usually try to get their hands on the source-code even if they don't intend to hurt anybody.
Once they leave the company and they've carried the source code with them and lost contact with their colleagues, the conscience settles down and goes on a vacation and after a while bits and pieces from the code start showing up everywhere.
That's what I KNOW happens cause I've witnessed it happen to my company.
So what does one do?
Sign a NDA which specifically mentions that they programmer WILL not take copies.
Distribute your product between programmers, and if possible get modules coded individually and integrated by a chief whose responsibility is that all programmers do nt get all the code.
At the time of termination get a written undertaking from the coders that they do not possess any IP of the company and they understand the penalties of violation.
If somebody violates your IP, sue the man! No exceptions. It'll work as an example for the present team.
Do I sound extreme?
I remember this happening to Valve when they were developing HL-2. Interesting link here: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/28619
Most of the answers are based on Moral and ethical values. I wonder if Google, Facebook etc. just rely on their employees good will. Give me a break, that's totally utopian. Don't be a fool. Be realistic.
YES, it is possible to prevent code leaking:
Using a virtual server hosting virtual machines, programmers can only access locally to these virtual machines (intranet) via Remote Desktop. Repository is managed locally. private keys are required to access the repository. Copy/paste from virtual machine to client is disabled. only copy/paste from client to virtual is allowed.
Companies like facebook do that.
The only way to still code is by taking pictures to the actual code, which is totally not practical and feasible at all, and since there are surveillance cameras everywhere, you will have to go to the bathroom to take those pictures.
I've worked somewhere where there was a real culture of secrecy about this sort of thing (historically there had been a number of times when the company was small where "customers" had, shall we say, abused their access to our product).
While at the top the management were very protective, I see it slightly differently. I think our code, while not entirely irrelevant, isn't as key as you'd expect it to be in a software company.
The reason that we are successful is:
1) The code is essentially the solution to a bunch of problems. If you get our code you get those solutions but we still have the smart people who solved those problems. They understand those problems better than you do and are better able to solve the next set of problems better than you are.
2) Because they really understand the problems (and the solutions) we can do things faster than our competitors which translates to cheaper (or more profitable).
3) Also because of those people and the attitude within the company we've delivered well to our clients and provided good support.
4) And because of that we have a good reputation and reference-able customers.
A small number of companies have code which is genuinely worth keeping secret - proprietary algorithms and that sort of thing - but for a vast majority of us our products are very easily replicable by smart people.
What I'm saying is do the basics - write it into people's contracts that they can't take it, keep it secure and so on - but don't obsess over it. Unless you're in a very specific market it's unlikely to be what's really going to make your business succeed or fail.
The best step starts from reruting guys with strong ethical behaviour.
Various other steps can be taken like all communication being scanned. There are places where email and all information going out is scanned. The desktop/laptop does not have hard-disk or the access is restricted and all work is on network folders, even when working from home, one has to get connected to internet. The offline work gets synchronized. The USB and drives are disconnected.
The other policies are to provide access only on need basis.
These will only slow down and hinder to some extent, but is one is very determined then he would find ways to get around this.
The other way is if the code is really very important, then have the idea copywrite protected legaly.
To be honest it's almost impossible. If I wanted to suggest what a company that would shortly appear on the Daily WTF would do:
Disconnect the "work computer" from the internet, bt because they need internet access for reference buy everyone a wbbook.
Stuff the developers USB slots with epoxy and require that they load/unload everything from a centralised server, which scans all the data that goes through it for code like syntax.
Or you could just trust your employees and make them sign an NDA...
I personally never tested on any real case, but I would suggest using code fragmentation:
basically you split your project in a number of libraries, define interfaces and unit tests for each of them, then you separate SVN repositories so that each group have access to a limited part of your precious source code.
This is also a good practice no matter what and should help if you are outsourcing abroad.
The previous answers all seem to center on building trust and employing ethical people.
Another possibility might be to create your own domain specific language and tools. That will make any leaked code harder to use. It might still be possible to steal useful ideas from it, but it would not be possible to simply compile a competing product unless the whole toolchain is leaked.
Trust your developers. People tend to live up or down to expectations. Treat them well, and remember that loyalty goes both ways. After all, if you can't cut off thumb drives, you can't stop anybody from leaking code, no matter how much you don't trust them.
That being said, find yourself a lawyer with trade secret expertise, probably expertise in other parts of IP law, and ask how to legally safeguard stuff. You do want to make sure that, if a competitor gets your stuff, it's not legal for the competitor to benefit from it.
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I'm the second dev and a recent hire here at a PHP/MySQL shop. I was hired mostly due to my experience in wrangling some sort of process out of a chaotic mess. At least, that's what I did at my last company. ;)
Since I've been here (a few months now), I've brought on board my boss, my product manager and several other key figures (But mostly chickens, if you pardon the Scrum-based stereotyping). I've also helped bring in some visibility to the development cycle of a major product that has been lagging for over a year. People are loving it!
However, my coworker (the only other dev here for now) is not into it. She prefers to close her door and focus on her work and be left alone. Me? I'm into the whole Agile approach of collaboration, cooperation and openness. Without her input, I started the Scrum practices (daily scrums, burndown charts and other things I've found that worked for me and my previous teams (ala H. Kniberg's cool wall chart). During our daily stand up she slinks by and ignores us as if we actually weren't standing right outside her door (we are actually). It's pretty amazing. I've never seen such resistance.
Question... how do I get her onboard? Peer pressure is not working.
Thanks from fellow Scrum-borg,
beaudetious
While Scrum other agile methodologies like it embody a lot of good practices, sometimes giving it a name and making it (as many bloggers have commented on) a "religion" that must be adopted in the workplace is rather offputting to a lot of people, including myself.
It depends on what your options and commitments are, but I know I'd be a lot more keen on accepting ideas because they are good ideas, not because they are a bandwagon. Try implementing/drawing her in to the practices one at a time, by showing her how they can improve her life and workflow as well.
Programmers love cool things that help them get stuff done. They hate being preached at or being asked to board what they see as a bandwagon. Present it as the former rather than the latter. (It goes without saying, make sure it actually IS the former)
Edit: another question
I've never actually worked for a place that used a specific agile methodology, though I'm pretty happy where I'm at now in that we incorporate a lot of agile practices without the hype and the dogma (best of both worlds, IMHO).
But I was just reading about Scrum and, is a system like that even beneficial for a 2 person team? Scrum does add a certain amount of overhead to a project, it seems, and that might outweigh the benefits when you have a very small team where communication and planning is already easy.
Without her input, I started the Scrum practices (daily scrums, burndown charts and other things I've found that worked for me and my previous teams (ala H. Kniberg's cool wall chart). During out daily stand up she slinks by and ignores us as if we actually weren't standing right outside her door (we are actually). It's pretty amazing. I've never seen such resistance.
Question... how do I get her onboard? Peer pressure is not working.
Yikes! Who would ever want to work in such an oppressive environment? If you're lucky, she's sending around her resume and you'll be able to hire someone who is on board with your development process.
Assuming you want to hang on to her, I'd turn down (or off) the rhetoric and work on being a friend and co-worker first. If the project is a year late, she can't be feeling good about herself and it sounds like you aren't afraid to trumpet your success. That can be intimidating.
I know nothing about Scrum, however. I'm just imagining what it would be like to walk around in your co-worker's shoes.
beaudetious, buddy,
I would really suggest you read Steve Yegge's blog called "Good Agile, Bad Agile". It's an oldy but a goody, and I think it's a must read for anyone - like myself about 2 months ago - who gets a little let's say "over-eager" to agile-up their workplace. Agile offers a lot of good practices, but you have to take them all with a grain of salt and adopt what you're lacking and skip out on all the other crud that might be unuseful for a particular situation - e.g. the daily scrum. If your co-worker would just like to code in quiet (read Peopleware for why this is a good thing) and she's being a productive team member quit bugging her with your scrumming a let her work in whatever way she likes most.
People are usually less "hostile" about these practices if you just approach them and simply say "Do you have a sec? Listen, communication is really a problem right now, I feel like I don't know what you're doing and I really don't want to step on your toes again and spend two days writing something you already did like last week, so let's work on this. I'd like to try X, what do you think?". Be compassionate and don't tolerate "bad apples", that's literally how I agiled up my workplace, and many problems have started evaporating. We're by no means an 100% XP or 100% Scrum compliant place, because we just use whatever works and was needed.
Simple. Don't talk about scrum. Don't use scrum on her. Instead take the underlying principles of scrum (e.g. the purpose as opposed to the application) and create different approaches that accommodate her way of working but have subtle tints of scrum.
All humans are different and a lot of programmers dislike scrum. I wouldn't force it upon them as that would just be counter-productive. I'd suggest identifying the problems in the development process (in a non-scrum fashion), see if you can get her to agree that the issues exist, then ask her what she thinks would be a good solution. Her co-operation and input into the process is essential to her co-operation, if she doesn't have buy-in she wont become a citizen.
From there on in you can hopefully create some sort of quasi-hybrid scrum + her approach to the process where you can both agree on the way forward.
I think the key would be to help her understand why you are doing Scrum in the first place. I guess you have your reasons, so why not tell her? You are likely to get resistance towards any change if the people involved don't understand why there is change or what they will benefit from it. If you can explain your reasons for using Scrum, and the following benefits, to her in a way that relates to her everyday work, I think she is more likely to adapt a more positive attitude towards it.
If she sees no value in the Scrum process, or doesn't understand how it relates to her, she probably won't care about it.
I think one of the most important concepts for someone to understand regarding Scrum is the fact that you are working as a group and commit to your project as a group, not as individuals. For many people, this is the hardest thing to grasp, since they are so used to living in "their own World".
I'm not sure Scrum is the central issue here; I'm guessing she feels threatened by the new guy bringing in a lot of new ideas and stirring things up. I've been in that situation before as the new person bringing in a new perspective on things, and sometimes it's just difficult to immediately bring those existing people around to a new way of thinking. It often requires a culture shift which doesn't happen overnight.
Try to get her input and opinion on things as much as possible, and try to show that you respect that she has been on the team longer than you. If after a while she still doesn't participate, then all you can do is mention it to your Manager and let them take it from there.
Continue your efforts to involve the other developer. Remember you are the one who wants to make this change. Ask for help with problems you have. Invite them to the daily stand up meeting. I currently do the planning for the daily stand up and I make sure all the pigs and chickens are invited. If you are the lead on the project it is up to you to address the situation and take a risk. Put yourself out there.