Archive

The Last Responsible Moment

In Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321150783/codihorr-20], Mary and Tom Poppendieck describe a counter-intuitive technique for making better decisions: > Concurrent software development means starting development when only partial requirements are known and developing in short iterations that provide the feedback

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

Chickens, Pigs, and Really Inappropriate Terminology

Here's a description of the daily Scrum meeting in the Scrum process: During the month-long sprints, the team holds daily meetings-- the daily Scrum. Meetings are typically held in the same location and at the same time each day. Ideally the daily Scrums are held in the morning,

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

Opting Out of Linked In

From the Wikipedia entry on Linked In [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn]: > It is not possible to remove yourself from LinkedIn. Instead, you have to file a customer support ticket. This blurb neatly summarizes everything that's wrong with the Linked In service. I've been

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

The Field of Dreams Strategy

We have a tendency to fetishize audience metrics in the IT industry. Presenters stress out about about their feedback ratings and measure themselves by how many attendees they can attract for a presentation. Bloggers obsessively track their backlinks, pagerank, and traffic numbers. I see it a lot, and it'

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

Chess: Computer v. Human

I recently visited the Computer History Museum in nearby San Jose, which has a new exhibit on the history of computer chess. Despite my total lack of interest in chess as a game, computer chess has a special significance in the field of computer science. Chess remains the most visible

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

Blog Advertising: Yea or Nay

I've recently been approached by several different people to inquire about advertising on my blog. It doesn't cost me anything to run this blog. I used to host it myself on my cable modem, and my employer, Vertigo Software, generously donated hosting when I outgrew the

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

Software Development: It's a Religion

It's Monday, and Steve Yegge still hates Agile software development. How much does he hate it? Approximately 11,000 words' worth. I think I could start a cottage industry producing Cliff's Notes versions of Steve Yegge posts. Here's my condensed version of Steve&

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

DEFCON: Shall We Play a Game?

Earlier this year I wrote about how much I loved Introversion Software's indie PC game Darwinia. Introversion just released their newest game, DEFCON. DEFCON channels WarGames and Balance of Power.. .. but Defcon begins where Balance of Power ended: It's positively strangelovian. The developers nail the mood

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

Building and Overclocking a Core 2 Duo System

It's been over a year since I built my last PC, and all those killer Core 2 Duo benchmark and overclocking results were making me anxious. I just pulled the trigger on the following Core 2 Duo upgrade: * ASUS P5B Deluxe motherboard, $195 * A-DATA 2GB DDR2 667 memory,

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

On Frameworkitis

Alex Gorbatchev, after a long hiatus, is blogging again. What was keeping him away? Frameworkitis. This is the longest break in posting I've had in the last 2.5 years of blogging. Community Server is really bringing me down… I just don't like it.

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

Is Software Development Like Manufacturing?

We've adopted Scrum for all of our software development at Vertigo. Although I'm totally in favor of Anything But Waterfall, Scrum is an unfortunate name: 1. It's two additional characters away from a term for male genitalia. 2. The term is derived from rugby,

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments

Anything But Waterfall

Steve Yegge's scathing criticism of agile methodologies takes a page from Joel Spolsky's book. It's not merely an indictment of Agile, it's also a celebration of how his company does business. Just substitute "Google" for "Fog Creek Software"

By Jeff Atwood · · Comments