InfoQ Homepage Culture & Methods Content on InfoQ
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Software Programming as Craft
The Cutter IT Journal recently published a special issue on software craftsmanship that included articles on what it means to be a software craftsman, software engineering vs. software craft, the relationship between Agile and craftsmanship, and crafting the user experience.
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Agile Project Leaders Network Reorganizes
The APLN is an organization that supports and helps to organize Agile user groups and an Agile-related conference called the Leadership Summit. The non-profit group has recently elected new board members, realigned its focus, and announced new initiatives and plans.
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Leverage Points: places to intervene in a system
A key decision for software architects involves where and how to introduce change into a system in order to effect a desired change. Leverage points are those places where micro changes can result in macro results. Twelve categories of leverage point are identified along with concerns about the changes.
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Cost of Cross Functional Teams
Cross functional teams are the teams in which all members work on delivery of the same business value. It could potentially be the same feature or the same product. Though, Agile recommends cross functional teams due to a lot of inherent advantages, there are some caveats that organizations need to be aware of.
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W3C Releases Unicorn Web Validation Tool
W3C has released Unicorn, a one-stop tool to help people improve the quality of their Web pages. Unicorn combines four popular tools, including the Markup validator, CSS validator, mobileOk checker, and Feed validator, with a single interface.
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Explaining Refactoring to Management
How can one explain the importance and value of refactoring to people in management who have never coded? How can one justify the expense of slowing down code delivery?
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MoDisco: A Model-Driven Software Modernization Framework
Software Modernization is an acute problem for most IT organizations. MoDisco is a joint project between MIA Software and the AtlanMod Research Team which is offering a model driven solution. Jordi Cabot and his colleagues wrote a two page introduction on this Eclipse project.
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WebSphere 7 Feature Pack Supports OSGi-based Application Deployment and SCA Integration
WebSphere Application Server V7 Feature Pack for OSGi Applications and Java Persistence API 2.0 offers a standards-based implementation of OSGi Blueprint Container specification and JPA 2.0. It also provides an optional feature to deploy and manage applications as versioned OSGi bundles. IBM recently announced the GA release of the feature pack which is based on Apache projects Aries and OpenJPA.
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The Value of Diversity
This is the second in a series of discussions looking at factors that enable Agile teams to be successful. Diversity of gender, culture, opinion, perspective, skills and background is considered to be an important factor in forming and persisting high-performance teams. This news item examines the perspectives from variety of commentators.
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Agile Beyond Software
Agile is gaining traction outside of the traditional IT work that it is commonly associated with. Change is happening faster in technology and business, and the empirical approach is becoming more and more accepted as a productive way to manage change and respond to it.
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Eclipse and Java 6u21 problems
Oracle recently released Java 6 update 21 which had a small but innocuous change in the way that the java.dll was created. Unfortunately, this change impacted Eclipse's startup; but a fix is on the way.
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Managing the Agile Team Environment
It is a well known fact that people leave managers, not organizations. Though, Agile teams are known to have camaraderie amongst team members, however the relationship of the manager with the team members and the organizational ecosystem as a whole holds the key to being an successful Agile manager.
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Cius, Exadata, Itasca: more than a platform
The Cius tablet PC from Cisco and the Exadata machine from Oracle-Sun involve more than the simple introduction of a new enterprise technology - they also indicate a possible new (or accelerating) trend away from selling general purpose platforms and towards tightly integrated application systems.
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Polymath: a new IT job description
Is "polymath" a required job skill for IT professionals? The rise of cloud computing, "green" computing, ultra-large scale systems, and even SOA and SaaS suggest the answer is yes. A book by Vinnie Mirchandani has prompted a flurry of commentary on what it would mean to be an IT Polymath and why such a skill is desirable.
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Scrum In Schools
Scrum is gaining traction outside of information technology. The Scrum in Schools project is a grassroots effort to bring a free, age-appropriate Scrum curriculum to educators throughout the world.