This week will be one of those wacky weeks, as we are in the boring aspect of the project: recognize a problem, research and implement solution. So to keep it interesting, I will be covering a common myth about software engineering that I think is actually true. Before we get to the topic, an update on the progress of the project. Overall, I am getting better with the technologies that are required for the project, and so I can be a little more daring with my implementations.

Onto the main topic, the myth that I will be covering is the tale that a way to tell if a software engineer is good or not is to count the number of monitors the engineer has up. I will have to say that this is true, and not for the reason that you think it is so. Let me guess, you are thinking the software engineer has multiple screens computers up to test that the product runs fine on all type of machines. While that is the ideal state, most likely what is going to happen is that the software engineer will have each screen asking a different stack overflow question. Technically, if you have enough screens, you can use stack overflow to help you with each aspect of your project, until you have everything up. So at that point is the language that you are writing the code with StackOverflow?

Jokes aside I have to say that having more screens up means that you are not constantly switching between tabs and your flow is not starting and stopping. This lack of constant stop and go means that your ideas will continue to flow and distractions are minimized. Especially now that I am using React, which is all about components, so that means, that a webpage will require many different jsx files, so constant switching between tabs. Did I mention that I am using a laptop, btw? So screen real estate is at a premium.

Like I said at the start, we are at the boring phase of the project, the research and implement portion, and so having that extra screen would really make this tedious process just tedious instead of tedious and frustrating. The ideal number of screens would have to be 3. One for your project, one for stack overflow, and one for your music. Seriously a dedicated screen for each will ensure that you are more productive -> promotion -> afford to increase screen count -> more productive -> promotion -> afford to increase screen count….

This myth is Busted.