Changing Perspectives
Published January 26th, 2010 Under Quotes | Leave a Comment
“In the early days of our industry, programmers wrote in assembly code, selecting registers in which to place variables and managing memory explicitly. If we had magically provided these programmers with a Smalltalk compiler, they might have asked, “How does this help us select registers? How do we allocate memory?” They might have concluded, “”We don’t want no stinkin’ Smalltalk!”
Old and new programmers are still writing programs, but the technology to achieve the goal has changed. When a new technology is sufficiently different, you can’t evaluate it in terms of the old technology.”
Source: Stephen J. Mellor, Letters section, IEEE Software, March/April 2004
Sometimes new ways of doing things come in our life and it might be difficult to adapt. If you are used to drive a car and you take a train, you don’t ask how you are going to “turn left”: the train just follows the tracks. However, you have now to go to a station, buy a ticket, look at timetable, etc… This could be the same thing with some of the software development approaches that have recently become popular.
Functional programming, domain driven design or frameworks that favors convention over configuration like Ruby on Rails can offer a new perspective about what you have to do to develop software. If you have the time (and the energy) I would like to strongly encourage you inform you about these approaches or even better to try them. Ironically, the above quotation was in reply of a letter about UML and Model Driven Architecture. Six years after, there is not a lot of people still caring about this way of developing software, as it is for Smalltalk or assembly languages.
Resources
* Wikipedia.
* Articles
Functional programming – HaskellWiki
Functional Programming For The Rest of Us
An Introduction to Web Development Using the Ruby on Rails Framework
An Introduction To Domain-Driven Design
An Introduction to Domain Driven Design
Linkopedia January 2010
Published January 25th, 2010 Under Links | Leave a Comment
Blog Post: High quality in application development without unit testing
Blog Post: The Problem with User Stories
Blog Post: Getting Real: the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals
Blog Post: A complete blog engine using Django in 60 minutes
Blog Post: UI Test Automation Tools are Snake Oil
Article: Love and Marriage: CMMI and Agile Need Each Other
Article: Speaking the Java language without an accent
Tool: GMetrics provides metrics for Groovy source code
Tool: Google’s framework for writing C++ tests on a variety of platforms
Video: Is Microsoft Going Agile? Insights from Scott Guthrie
Video: Achieving Web Test Automation with a Mixed-Skill
Video: Event Driven Architecture
Find more interesting links on the software development links directory, the software development tools directory, the software development articles directory, the software development blogs aggregator or the software development videos directory.
Review of 2009 for Software Development: Many Acquisitions and a Funeral
Published January 21st, 2010 Under News, Software Development | 2 Comments
Last year has certainly been busy for the software development tools industry. We have seen many companies merging together and also the funeral of one of the oldest brand in the software development industry. Read more
Agile Project Management
Published January 19th, 2010 Under Books | Leave a Comment
The fact that this book is already at his second edition after a first publication in 2004 says something about its value. In one of his definition of Agile, Jim Highsmith says, “Agility is the ability to balance flexibility and stability”. I will say that his book balances nicely high level thinking and a pragmatic approach. The book provides a framework for running agile projects and gives also insight in some more neglected related topics like managing projects portfolios or measuring the success of Agile projects.
The author starts by defining what Agility is and emphasizes that Agile is about “delivering value over meeting constraints”. The book describes the Agile Project Management (APM) framework, discussing its values and presenting the phases (Envision, Speculate, Explore, Adapt, and Close). The core values of the APM are:
* Delivering Value over Meeting Constraints
* Leading the Team over Managing Tasks
* Adapting to Change over Conforming to Plans.
All these aspects are covered with both a high level vision (after all values are values), but also by describing daily project activities: Key points that will help you understand the author message are put in evidence. Example: A coaching leader’s attitude is reflected in the question “How can I help you deliver results?” The micro-manager’s attitude is reflected in the question, “Why isn’t task 412 done yet?”
The final parts of the book deal with topics related to Agile project management: scaling, project portfolio management, measuring performance and fostering innovation. This is definitely a book that I will recommend to every people involved in project management, agile or not. I always think that learning Agile practices should be preceded by understanding Agile values. This book provides insightful material for values and practices.
Related web sites:
* Jim Highsmith Web site
* Agile Project Leadership Network
Reference: “Agile Project Management”, Second Edition, Jim Highsmith, Addison-Wesley, 392 pages
Get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.com
Get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.co.uk
Scrum Meet-up with Jeff Sutherland, 25 January, Zurich
Published January 14th, 2010 Under Conferences | Leave a Comment
Jeff Sutherland visits Switzerland on 25 January 2010. At the meetup, he will give a talk on a state of the art Scrum topic and you will have the opportunity to ask questions and mingle with other Scrum users. Please find the details of the event below.
Language: English
Place: Technopark Zürich, Seminarraum Fortran
Date: 25 January 2010 at 7.30 pm
Price: Free
Max seats: 60 (First come – first served) sandwiches aand drinks will be served
Please note that due to limited seats, registration is required and could be made via sec @ trifork [dot] com.
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