InfoQ Homepage Culture & Methods Content on InfoQ
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Experience Report: Unique Work-Study Agile Development Apprenticeship at NMHU
In 2004 a new work-study degree program launched at NMHU, using Agile practices to execute commercial projects. The premise: create a balance of people, software, systems, craft and agility to produce development teams 10 times as productive as their traditional counterparts. InfoQ brings you the story of a unique educational experiment: a challenge to think differently about training developers.
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A Status Update on the OpenAjax Alliance
Coach Wei, CTO of Nexaweb, has written a status update on the OpenAjax Alliance and the challenges he see that exist for Ajax Adoption. He sees the biggest hurdle to Ajax being confusion as a result of numerous Ajax architectures. He also lists several technical issues that he feels the alliance should address such as toolkit loading, name collision, and event interaction between Ajax toolkits.
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Study: Co-Located Teams vs. the Cubicle Farm
Many trainers agree that co-location is essential to really see the benefits of Agile, but proof of this has been largely anecdotal. On the ScrumDevelopment list recently, an interesting conversation was launched when a member pointed out a study conducted at a Fortune 50 auto maker, comparing productivity gains in collaborative workspaces versus traditional cubicle culture projects.
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Easing into XP - for the Harried and Stressed
One can't always start from scratch with Agile - sometimes it's used to salvage troubled projects, but Emanuel Gaillot notes that "What's tough about XP is, the more you need it to get your project in a better shape, the harder it is to start doing it." Can a team really afford to switch in the middle of a troubled project? Gaillot recently shared his approach to gradual XP implementation.
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CruiseControl.Net 1.1 Released
The team behind CruiseControl.Net has released version 1.1. CrusieControl.Net provides continuous integration capabilities for .NET developers. A cornerstone of Agile development, continuous integration is used to ensure that team members stay in sync and the integration issues are discovered early. This marks the first major release of CuriseControl.Net in nearly a year.
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Managing Agile Projects - How Hard Can It Be?
Agile projects emphasize self-organizing teams and tight IT/customer collaboration, but does this relieve managers of their role? Liz Barnett, editor-in-chief at AgileJournal.com believes it does not... that the manager role remains critical, though Agile does change it. Her recent article on managing Agile projects recommends some practices to focus on when switching to Agile management.
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Fowler: "Agile Imposition is a Very Red Flag"
Martin Fowler, one of the original creators of the Agile Manifesto in 2001, reflected last week on reports of Agile process being imposed on teams from the outside. He states his reaction succinctly: "Imposing a process on a team is completely opposed to the principles of agile software, and has been since its inception."
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New Closures Proposal from Doug Lea, Josh Bloch, and Bob Lee
A new proposal for adding closures to Java 7 has been proposed by Josh Bloch, Doug Lea, and Bob Lee. It was drafted in response to the other major proposal currently in the works. Lee notes that the goal of the new proposal is to try to find a balance between the power of closures and the weight of new syntax.
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Case Study: DSDM Bridges the Gap Between PRINCE 2 and XP
PRINCE 2 is a traditional project management method, mandated for government agencies in the UK. Extreme Programming (XP) is considered one of the lightest Agile software development methods, relying on team self-management. In this case study, Barbara Roberts uses one of the more management-oriented Agile methods, DSDM, to get these two approaches working together within a single project.
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Experience Report: Running FIT and Fitnesse with Ruby
Ron Jeffries and Chet Hendrickson, well known contributors to the Extreme Programming community, regularly meet in bookstores and cafes to pair program, then Ron blogs about what they've learned. Yesterday Ron wrote a detailed blow-by-blow of their experience installing and configuring Ruby/Fit, then Fitnesse on top of it. For agile practitioners, this is essential "Iteration 0" work.
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Test Driven Database Development
Scott Ambler thinks it's time to raise the bar on data quality: he suggests teams should adapt well accepted TDD code quality practices to database development, since data is a valuable corporate asset. His article in September's TASSQuarterly magazine presents his "Test Driven Database Development" (TDDD) which, just like TDD, combines test-first practices and refactoring.
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Why 1994 and 1998 CHAOS Stats Differ Widely
Jim Johnson, creator of the CHAOS Chronicles on project failure, answers a question outstanding after our August interview: How does he explain the amazing change in cost overrun from 189% in 1994 to 69% in 1998? Apparently Standish planned to publish a CHAOS report in 1996 but held it back due to these unexpected results. Johnson shares what their research revealed happened.
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Jeff Bezos Suggests Outsourcing Least Important 70%; A Boost for Rails?
Amazon.com founder, Jeff Bezos, explains 70% of a project's time is spent on inconsequential tasks and suggests these could be outsourced to third parties or technologies, such as Rails.
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Opinion: Take Agile Off Your Resume
Yesterday Steve Yegge blogged about development practices under the title "Good Agile, Bad Agile". He wrote about "Good Agile" at Google, "Bad Agile" almost everywhere else, and offered consultants and job hunters some professional advice: drop the name.
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FishEye 1.2: Enhancing Version Control
Cenqua has released FishEye 1.2, a commercial version control exploration tool supporting CVS and Subversion. The new version improves Subversion support, adds new visualizations, email feeds, user preferences, and administration features.