InfoQ Homepage Culture & Methods Content on InfoQ
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Presentation: Convergence: Model-Based Software, Systems And Control Engineering
In this presentation filmed during OOPSLA 2008, Janos Sztipanovits attempts to tackle the complexity of large scale systems integration. Software, systems and control engineering converge in such systems, raising the integration challenges and demanding a new approach to model-based design.
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Interview: Software Design Helps Being Agile
In this interview made by InfoQ’s Deborah Hartmann during Agile 2008, Rebecca Wirfs-Brock talks about software design, the need for good design and the technical debt that might accumulate slowing down the development process. The conclusion is that agile developers should not disregard design.
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Adopting The Whole Enchilada
Recently InfoQ reported on Jim Shore's 'The Decline and Fall of Agile', which highlighted a trend for organizations to adopt "Agile" (in name) but fail to adopt what it means to be Agile (in practice). Community leaders such as Joshua Kerievsky, Martin Fowler, and Ron Jeffries have taken Shore's post a few steps further recently, posting their own thoughts on what's going on with this situation.
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Rebooting Computing Summit 2009: Computing is Not Dead
Rebooting Computing Summit 2009 concluded recently and had over 250 people representing industry, practitioners, and academia convene to discuss how to 'reboot' the computer science field, since reports show that the innovation rate in our field has been declining and that enrollments in our degree programs have dropped 50% since 2001.
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Presentation: Agile Methods and User Centered Design
In this presentation filmed during ThoughtWorks’ Quarterly Technology Briefing, Dave Robertson and John Johnston explain what the Agile and User Centered Design’s (UCD) common denominators are, common values being the most important one in their opinion.
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Succession, an Agile Approach to Evolving Architecture
Kent Beck wrote 'First One, Then Many' to explain the application of Succession to software design. Succession is a technique for evolving the architecture of a system from 'just enough for now' to what will eventually be needed. The example given is for a system that only needs to process one transaction today, but will eventually need to process many.
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Announcement: Agile 2009 and XP 2009 Conference Submissions Ending Soon
The two flagship conferences for the Agile community occur each summer. This year Agile 2009 will be held Chicago during the week of August 24th while XP 2009 will be held in Sardinia (Italy) the week of May 26th. Submissions are still being accepted for both conferences for two more weeks.
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BPEL: Who Needs It Anyway?
A new article by Keith Swenson follows InfoQ’s article “Why BPEL is not the holy grail for BPM” to show BPEL’s limitations and the ways they can be overcome by direct BPMN execution.
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"Good Design" Means ...?
It's not news that at the heart of successful software systems (and, frankly, fulfilling software careers) is good design. Also not news is that defining what "good design" really means has been at the heart of many debates, papers, talks, books, discussions, and more for ages. To help, J.B. Rainsberger and Scott Bellware offer some advice to follow until that one true definition comes along.
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Interview: Similarities Between Interaction Designers and Agile Programmers
In this interview taken during Agile 2008, Alan Cooper, the father of Visual Basic and supporter of interaction design, talks about his contact with the Agile movement and the similarities discovered between Agile programmers and interaction designers.
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Presentation: Conceptual Algorithms
In this talk from RubyFringe, Tom Preston-Werner talks about how he uses the scientific method for tracking down software problems. He demonstrates how he used this approach to track down a particularly sneaky memory leak in a Ruby app, and more.
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Agile Risk Management
Risk management is an activity directed towards the assessing, mitigating and monitoring of risks. Agilists suggest ways to effectively manage risk and use it to make better commitments to the stakeholders.
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Track Velocity, Not Time Spent on Tasks
A member of a new agile team asked the Scrum Development list how to keep track of the actual time engineers spend on tasks, and how this relates to the agile concept of velocity. Velocity is the agile metric for tracking how fast the team is completing features, and thus how long it will take to complete a project. The group's opinion was that tracking time spent isn't necessary or useful.
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Measure Agile Productivity in $
Earlier Scott Ambler posted an article of how to measure productivity on agile teams by utilizing acceleration. Recently he followed up with another post where he answers some frequently asked questions related to agile productivity and acceleration. Specifically one question answers how to measure the amount of $ saved by an accelerating team.
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"Classic" versus "Mockist" TDD, Distinction Real?
Hot in the TDD Yahoo group is a discussion concerning the perceived continuum between the "Classic" and "Mockist" TDD. Steve Freeman, Nat Pryce, Michael Feathers, Dale Emery, and many more discuss terminology and describe their approaches. The discussion also debates whether there even really exists such a continuum, and if so, what distinguishes the approaches that represent it's extremes?