Agile Artisans

Does Your Team Have STDs?

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I was talking with a friend about a common ailment on development teams today. And it seems to be getting worse.

Perhaps you've seen it already in your shop. Once one person catches an STD, it seems to spread quickly.

STD, of course, stands for Shiny Things Development.

Oh cool! Check that out... it's new and cool. Let's include it in the product! Why? Umm... it solves some problem. And didn't I just say it's shiny and new?

How many shops have you met that have insane development infrastructures "just in case" things get crazy? Anytime the shop has a list of tools and libraries where every single one requires a specific version for anything to work, someone there has STD.

What's the problem with STD? It generally indicates a lack of discretion and promiscuous use of technology. Rather than saving yourself for something that actually works, you're chasing down every new product and technology. Sure, it might be fun to try out new stuff

My New Job... NFJS One

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Next week I'll be starting an exciting new career opportunity. I'll be working with Jay Zimmerman and a few other key people to provide a "one source solution" for a variety of consulting and training services. The inspiration for the name comes from the No Fluff Just Stuff software symposiums that Jay started back in 2001 and I regularly participate in. The idea is to provide an additional level of superior service to companies who want private training or that last a few days building on the 90 minute presentations offered by a No Fluff Just Stuff show. There are many opportunities to take training to a deeper level and that's what we'll be providing as well as some public classes centered around agile testing, Ruby, and Rails classes very soon.

In addition we'll be organizing several regional Ruby conferences and Agile conferences. The Agile One and Ruby One events will be very similar in size and composition

NFJS Alumni Google Group

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Dave Klein, frequent NFJS attendee (who also works behind the scenes from time to time) started an NFJS Alumni group. If you've ever attended NFJS (or thought about attending), I'd encourage you check it out. It's brand new now, but should grow.

If I can speak for Dave (he created the group during one of my talks), the intention was to give people a way to extend the experience and discuss the talks, etc after the show. Maybe even discuss them with attendees from different cities, see what talks are hot this year, etc.

NFJS Alumni

Jared

The iPhone (and Tech Toys) in Perspective

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ouch. I feel guilty.

The Joy of Tech on 3G iPhones

Server Side is Where Java Shines

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I was interviewed by Carl Williams via email a few months ago. He's interviewed a few other people as well and put together a short interview piece. It's an interesting mix of perspectives.

Java Experts: Server Side is Where Java Shines

The Agile It! Experience

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0000

The Agile It! Experience (aka Agile ITX) finished up this weekend and was a great success. The speakers were all top rate. The audience was educated and engaged. We had great interactions and great questions. I brought my daughter Hannah along and she walked the fine line between entertaining the audience without annoying them. Other than me bashing my head into the side of the swimming pool (ouch!) and having too many managers (and not enough management related talks), I can't think of a thing that wasn't stellar. Next time I'll bring goggles to the pool, and I can guaranty we'll have the management track topped out next time around.

Here are a few related links summing up the conference:

David Bock from a speaker's point of view:
Agile IT Exchange Conference

And Mike Witter's attendee point of view:
speaker list is a "Who's who" of Ruby development and a stellar slate for any conference.
If you're into Ruby or Rails, I strongly encourage you to check out this event.

eRubyCon.com

Continuous Integration: Fewer Bugs, Less Work

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Jennette Mullaney was kind enough to attend my talk Continuous Integration, The Cornerstone of a Great Shop talk in Las Vegas. We spoke for a bit afterwards and she put it all together into a nice interview.

Continuous integration reduces bugs, increases productivity

Enjoy!

Ken Sipe Tonight at AgileRTP: Iteration Zero

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Ken, one of NFJS's best speakers, speaks tonight at Agile RTP. He'll be giving his well-known Iteration Zero talk.

I may not be there (my wife's under the weather), but Ken's a great speaker. If you're in the RTP, NC area, I'd encourage you to come out.

OTP on Rails

Tue, 27 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Joe Armstrong's blog entry has some great quotes and insights. This type of thinking is exactly why you need to learn another language.

The Road we didn't go down

If you don't learn to think in a language like Erlang, you'll never be able to fully bring those idioms and paradigms back to your day job language. I'm simply repeating the advice of the Pragmatic Programmers from nearly a decade ago, but learn a new language every year.
And as any weightlifter will tell you, if you're not sore when you're done, you weren't working out. You were coasting. No pain, no gain applies to your brain as well as your back. So if you pick a new technology too close to what you already know, it might feel too easy. If so, back up and adjust your technical workout plan. Hit the muscles you haven't used in a while.
Feel the burn! ;)