InfoQ Homepage Customers & Requirements Content on InfoQ
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Presentation: Business Natural Languages Development in Ruby
In this presentation, Jay Fields introduces his concept of Business Natural Languages (BNL). BNLs are a type of Domain Specific Language, designed to be readable by any subject matter expert, which allows to create maintainable specifications and documentation. The example languages are implemented using Ruby.
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Debate: Should Architecture Rewrite be Avoided?
As it gets more and more difficult to adapt software to new demands, the temptation to rebuild it in order to update the architecture grows stronger. For this risky undertaking it is essential to choose the right strategy. Several authors provide insights into advantages and disadvantages of different possible options in terms of cost, technical complexity and potential commercial risk.
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InfoQ Video: Practices of an Agile Developer
At NFJS Venkat Subramaniam, co-author with Andy Hunt of "Practices of an Agile Developer," shared his pragmatic approach to some of the important technical and non-technical factors contributing to project success, including: coding, developer attitude, debugging, mentoring and feedback.
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Should the Customer Care about Agile?
The involvement of customer in an Agile project is taken for granted, however in many situations, intentionally or unintentionally, the customer may not follow the Agile practices. An interesting discussion on the Extreme Programming group tries to decipher the situation and find possible solutions.
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Bedtime User Stories: Cowboys and Fairytales
In which David Longstreet claims Agile Software Development is a Fairy Tale that just tries to legitimise Cowboy development, and Geoff Slinker invites him to write a Serious Article based on Logical Arguments and Citing Sources.
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The Future Of Functional Testing
Jennitta Andrea & Ward Cunningham recently hosted a WebCast on 'Envisioning the Next Generation of Functional Test Tools'. Also, towards the end of last year Thoughtworks' announced its intention to release a next generation functional testing tool. InfoQ investigates the growing momentum for change in the area of functional testing and how the thought leaders in this area see it developing.
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White: A New Windows UI Developer Testing Framework
The White project is an automated testing framework for Win32, WinForm, WPF and SWT (java) applications. Use it in combination with your favorit xUnit framework just like WatiN to perform user acceptance testing.
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InfoQ Presentation: Selecting the Right Methodology and Steering it to Success
It's easy to agree with "anything more than 'barely sufficient' in is waste," but it's more complicated when we actually need to customize a process for a particular project. At Agile2006 Todd Little shared a model to help leaders choose the right flavour of Agile based on project and team attributes, and he emphasised the need to actively steer projects as development progresses.
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Right-Size Your User Stories
For those using User Stories, getting them right is one of the difficult aspects of an Agile process - they can drive or bog down your work. Pat Kua recently addressed a key question: How much detail should you put in your story? The answer, of course, is "it depends" on where you are in the process.
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Discussion: Measuring Success of an Agile Project from the Customer’s Perspective
A recent discussion on the Scrum Development list looked at: “How does a customer measure the success of an Agile project?” Emphasis on: “measure”. The discussion seemed to agree that clients do need a way to track success in their terms, and various metrics were suggested, though it was agreed: it depends on the situation and the customer.
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Iterating and Incrementing to 'Get What You Need'
In "Don't know what I want, but I know how to get it", Jeff Patton described a few ways in which Agile teams and business users miscommunicate, and argued that the agile community needs to be clear about the terms 'iterating', 'incrementing' and 'shippable'.
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Successful Collaboration Doesn't Happen by Accident
Partnership Coach Michael Spayd tells us that both contractors and permanent employees can find themselves playing a "consultant" role, and should consider using consulting contracts or "designed partnerships" with their clients - not regarding the exchange of money, but to create a climate for stellar results for the client, while also communicating their own values and preferences.
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Charming the Army: the Power of Delivery
Here is a story about Agile's use in a governmental organisation: at the 2006 APLN Leadership Summit Mark Salamango and John Cunningham looked at the problems and opportunities of introducing Agile in Army environments. True Agile practices cannot be 'commanded' or 'directed’ but frequent delivery offers Agile leaders a "soft" kind of power that is, in fact, very effective.
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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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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.