You’ve had problems with files. Probably due to their file extensions. Let’s say you wanted the last three characters to determine the file type. You ask some people questions about it.

You search for code to find the last three characters. Your coworkers probably have some suggestions, so you ask them as well.

You’re stuck on your solution, without looking back at the problem.

You’ve got into the XY problem. Let’s go into the details of it.

What’s the XY Problem?

The XY problem is asking about your attempted Y solution. You should ask about actual X problem.

— xyproblem.info

Let’s make a general…

You know to join strings. But do you know how to effectively join strings?

Why you should use StringBuilder over +? What’s the most effective way to concatenate strings? What performance issues each option brings?

Few developers concatenate with +, others concatenate with StringBuilder.

You’ll learn when to concat with +. You’ll even learn what’s better than +.

· 1. Why you shouldn’t use + for joining strings?
· 2. How to effectively use StringBuffer?
· 3. How to effectively concatenate strings in a loop?
· 4. How to effectively join 2 strings?
· 5. How to effectively use StringBuilder?
· Takeaway…

A holy war. The holy war of XML and JSON. War of pros and cons.

XML vs JSON. Why is JSON better than XML? Why is XML better than JSON?

You can find tons of information on this topic. You can also read my humble piece, coming from experience. Extensive experience with both formats.

This piece answers the adage question: “When you should choose XML over JSON? Why use JSON over XML? When the choice doesn’t matter?”

· On XML bloatedness
· How to reference object in JSON?
· How to convert JSON to XML?
· XML is extensible
· JSON handling is easier…

“Most people work just hard enough not to get fired… and get paid just enough money not to quit.” — George Carlin

You’re not like most developers. You’re reading about team-based learning — you want improvement. You want to achieve more, code with ease, and code faster.

How can team-based learning help you and your team? How can the swarming technique help? Increases business value, engagement, and improves team collaboration.

Are you curious about team-based learning? Let’s dive in.

1. Collaborate in small groups

Rapid changes need networking. You can learn more, collaborate with ease, and implement rapidly.

Kotter suggests building networks on top of…

Descriptions (resumes) that can apply to anyone are worthless. — Andy Lester

Does your resume get lost in the resume’s pile? Does this sounds familiar “you’re in our resume database”? Do you leave the interview feeling you didn’t leave a good impression?

One thing you can improve is your resume. You need to shift your resume from “I’m good at teamwork!” to “My team deployed an award-winning website!”. Show that you are a valuable asset, rather than a liability.

Here are some tips on improving your resume. Helped me and my friend land a tech job. …

What is the main driver for job-hopping? Better pay. Studies have shown, and we can confirm.

What are other factors for quitting? What makes one go from happily churning code to leaving without looking back?

Let’s dive in. Refer to TOC for faster navigation.

· 1. Relying on false promises
· 2. Constant worker’s abuse
· 3. No visible growth
· 4. Back-to-back pointless meetings
· 5. Phony deadlines
· Summary

1. Relying on false promises

Managers lie about the feature set. This happened to me, and it’s not pleasant. You need to work overtime, to finish on time. Tricks salespeople use harm developers a…

Error handling makes a lot of a developer’s workday. We fix bugs, investigate errors, and create handling routines.

Bug fixing holds a lot of responsibility. Depending on the context, consequences can cost billions of dollars. James Gosling shares his friend story:

James Gosling: If you’re writing transaction reconciliation software for some bank, you could find that oh, thirteen billion dollars leaked out of some system because of a bug. I actually had a friend who basically lost thirteen billion dollars in one night because of a bug.

What are the advantages of exceptions? What benefits exceptions bring over error codes…

There are few ways to create lists.

• Arrays.asList(…)
• List.of(…)
• Collections.unmodifiableList(…)
• Collections.singletonList(..)
• new ArrayList(…)

Which one to pick? Why you should pick List.of over Arrays.asList? What benefits does each bring? Let’s answer these questions.

To complete the whole article we need to run this code. Tests will show valid operations, and which throw an exception. Code is not clean, per se, but does the job.

Arrays::asList

Returns a fixed-size list backed by the specified array. (Changes to the returned list “write through” to the array.) This method acts as bridge between array-based and collection-based APIs, in combination with Collection.toArray(). The returned list…