Calculus in the community
This blog will contain random thoughts on things of a generally geeky nature - pseudo science, software development, technology, and maybe a few kittens. This morning there was a discussion on the...
View ArticleFlashback
Last night, I tried to explain to L (an architect) what this "Chaos Theory" thang is. She's doing a thesis on the "Tectonics of Smoke", and has been asked to actually try and understand the...
View ArticleScalability of development process
My current project has an agile mind-set, but a slow development process. The overhead of picking up a CR, checking out, testing, checking-in, integrating, and deploying build is currently getting up...
View ArticleSummer Migration
Clustering is remarkably, almost trivially, easy. There is a current Linux distro called ClusterKnoppix that combines Knoppix and OpenMosix. Knoppix is what is known as single system image...
View ArticleMedium and the message
Object orientation has been a fantastic tool for developers over the past 20 years. While it is not the only paradigm that helps create quality software, it is extremely good at managing complexity....
View ArticleSupport
Nouns...A military operation (often involving new supplies of men and materiel) to strengthen a military force or aid in the performance of its mission (Example: "They called for artillery support")The...
View ArticleSupport Languages
My current fascination with support (and incorporating Agile approaches into support processes), suddenly chimed with the MPS system (from JetBrains) that Martin Fowler was talking about. The basic...
View ArticleHagakure quotes
I've started reading Hagakure, penned by Yamamoto Tsunetomo in the late 17th Century. These quotes strike me as being appropriate to my current situation, and to consultancy in general. It should be...
View ArticlePersonal retrospective
We're been going through the review process here recently. It's been my first time as a reviewer rather than reviewee, so was wondering how to approach it. With my reviewee's permission, I tried...
View ArticleBack in the picture
Here I am now, coming to the end of a phase of am agile project. The following conversation occurs:"Dude", (for it was he), "How does this software work?"."Well...", and then we stand in a room talking...
View ArticlePremptive Nostalgia
There a moment on a good project team where everything clicks. All the egos are in harmony, no-one's being polite anymore, and you can just feel the team purr. As a team lead, there are few ways of...
View ArticleWhat colour is your code?
Thanks to Jeremy Ruston for this - it started as a drunken conversation about 4 years ago, developed through a couple of years of casual use in a professional environment, and now I use it for a...
View ArticleMutil-threading in Ruby
Having spent some actual time on a Java based multi-threaded project, I want to reflect.My reflection is: Don't ever use Java's concurrency libraries in an agile project. At a high level this is for...
View ArticleArticle 2
A few bits of language related to enterprise deployment - someone send me some references, there are probably other, better, names for this:The differences between "green/blue" and "silver/gold" are...
View ArticleTechnology and process innovation
In an agile/lean software development team, discussion is invited, but coordinated. I've noticed that people who are passionate about technology or process often feel friction if they don't get a good...
View ArticleAgile infrastructure - missing pieces
My last 5 or 6 Agile projects have involved non-trivial architectures. By this I mean that they've been more than a browser, application server, and a database. While I would urge all people with...
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