The Latest

We all know what it’s like to be frustrated with someone else when that person isn’t being as responsive as we would like. It’s especially easy to do when our own work or responsibilities are on the line. In this tale from Naomi Karten, she shows that a lack of response doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of care and explains how very important it is to have the full story before you get too worked up.

Jonathan Lindo describes examples of automated test infrastructure utilizing both open source and traditional, independent-software-vendor-sourced software. In addition, he discusses new techniques for extending the value of automated testing by transforming the process from defect finding to defect resolution by reducing the effort required to document, reproduce, and troubleshoot the defects generated from automated tests.

George and Bob Payne discuss the finer points of appropriately sizing user stories to ensure that they can be delivered. This is a fairly tricky process and is best figured out by experimentation and ensuring that you have good examples.

While some falsely accuse agile of not being scalable at the enterprise level, large development teams are beginning to see the benefits that agile can bring larger environments. As more business leaders, and CTO's become familiar with agile methodologies, the trend will only continue to rise.

In the past few months I've heard a couple of stories about (in effect) the disadvantages of experience when it comes to innovation and productivity. A Story on WBUR on July 5, 2011
discussed how venture capitalists tend to favor young entrepreneurs, as, having never learned the wrong things in business, they don't know what's possible or impossible. In one quote, a VC said:

Agile development practices at their core, have a common theme of making better use of the time spent developing software. This starts at the project level and continues down to the developer day-to-day-activities. Consider an agile iteration. The team starts the iteration with a clear sense of the priorities for the sprint, and pretty good understanding of the project scope. Having estimated and committed to getting the work done, the team also has a sense that the goal is attainable. The team members then collaborate to get the work done as a team.

Software people love challenges and want to exercise their brains by tackling difficult problems. Our nature is to understand complicated problems, become familiar with various business domains, and generate a solution that helps the world become a better place. Nirav Assar explains four techniques to wrap your head around complicated code.