InfoQ Homepage Culture & Methods Content on InfoQ
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InfoQ Interview: Hugh Ivory on DSDM's Public "Atern" Release
DSDM has been called "the grandmother" of the agile methodologies, first released in 1995. Until recently it was only available to members but this year, for the first time, the DSDM Consortium made the "Atern" release available to the public. Director Hugh Ivory provided an overview at Agile2007, including a look at both old and new customer-facing roles in DSDM.
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Closures and Preserving the Feel of Java
During the last few years, there has been wide-ranging discussion about adding closures to the Java language, either as part of Java SE 7, or in some future, unspecified release. At Javapolis, Joshua Bloch presented his opinion about the controversy, and why he feels that CICE is a more suitable approach.
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Interview: Charles Simonyi on Intentional Software
Charles Simonyi, the President of Intentional Software and a recent space traveller presents his views on the future of software development. He talks about how to include domain experts in the development cycle by letting them express their intentions in domain specific languages, about Intentional's view on DSLs and Domain Driven Design and about what it was like to be a space tourist.
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DWR: State of the Union
There is a lot going on in the DWR world: DWR joining the Dojo Foundation; Joe Walker, creator of DWR, joining SitePen, Ltd. as Director of Support and Development; and an announcement of the features that are expected to be part of DWR 3.0.
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Agile2008 Call for Submissions
The call has gone out to anyone interested in presenting at the Agile2008 conference in Toronto. Grigori Melnik of the Agile Alliance explained in a video the new collaborative submission process, which rewards early birds with feedback and a chance to improve their submissions right up to the deadline.
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Opinion: Refactoring is a Necessary Waste
Refactoring is one of the key technical practices in the Agile developer's toolkit. Refactoring also has no measurable customer value by its very definition - it involves changing the structure (design) while maintaining the behavior. In the Lean world - anything that does not have customer value is waste, and a customer only perceives behavior/functionality and not structure.
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RSpec 1.1 - A Step Up for BDD advocates
RSpec has become a poster child for both Domain Specific Languages and Behavior Driven Development (BDD), a type of Test Driven Development. The new RSpec 1.1 release adds improved support for Rails and other improvements.
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'MSF for Agile' with MS VSTS - Worth a Look?
At Qcon London, Kevin Jones spoke from his experiences about Building Better Apps using MSF for Agile with Visual Studio Team System (VSTS). Using examples from Agile teams, he walked through the layers and components of Microsoft's tools, emphasising their flexibility. For Agile teams considering / already committed to Microsoft, this video provides an experienced viewpoint & may be worth a look.
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Can architecture create a gap between developers and software they build?
Many software project management and architecture approaches tend to parcel out work on a project in a way to create hierarchical layers. This helps simplify both developers’ work and management. However, the underlying information shielding among layers can potentially create a gap between developers and the software they are building, if their tasks are totally taken out of functional context.
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Continuous Integration and Code Inspection with Hudson and FindBugs
A recent article published in IBM developerWorks talks about automating Continuous Integration and Code Inspection tasks in a build process using open source tools. It explains how to install and configure Hudson server with Subversion, Ant, and software inspection tools like FindBugs and PMD to create a build process with continuous feedback on test results and defects.
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HTTP Being Revised
Mark Nottingham notes that the HTTPbis working group had its first face-to-face meeting recently to discuss updates to HTTP.
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Static Code Analysis can Highlight Deeper Flaws
Static code analysis (SCA) tools like those offered by FindBugs, PMD, CheckStyle, IntelliJ IDEA can help a development team track down problems and keep quality high. But when an SCA tool flags a problem, how should a team react? Vikas Hazrati's Static Code Analysis is just the Tip of the Iceberg suggested: look deeper.
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Autotest - a hidden tool gem
Autotest runs your tests whenever you save your files - actually, it's smarter than that. We take a look at how a tool like Autotest helps Ruby developers be productive without needing an IDE.
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Big Architecture Up Front - A Case of Premature Scalaculation?
Taking a look at the reaction in the blogosphere to the idea of "premature scalaculation". The question is - when designing your application, how much time should you spend on building out for scalability?
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Debate: What role will the JCP play in Java's future?
Recently, Alex Blewitt described the Java Community Process (JCP) as dead, likening it to a headless chicken which "doesn't realise it yet and it's still running around, but it's already dead". This touched off a debate over the usefulness of the JCP and how much it will play a role in Java's future.