InfoQ Homepage Delivering Value Content on InfoQ
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Darwin and Service Reuse: Competition is Good
Service reuse is something that many SOA proponents say is a benefit. However, proponents of object-orientation techniques said the same thing and that didn't materialize. Is introducing competition in the service arena a way of getting improvements in reuse?
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InfoQ Interview: Mary and Tom Poppendieck on using Lean for Competitive Advantage
Lean software gurus Mary and Tom Poppendieck share their years of practical experience, as they speak on the history of Lean thinking, the value of fast delivery and deferred committment, their use of Value Stream Mapping to identify and reduce waste, the importance of identifying and dealing well with cross-organizational and inter-organizational boundaries, and how Lean relates to RUP and Scrum.
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User-Centric Development Approaches: What's Next?
On her Creating Passionate Users blog, Kathy Sierra recently envisioned software that's not just usable, but transparent, helping users achieve "flow" in their work without intrusive distractions, delays or constraints. Perhaps end-user "flow" is the next big differentiator - and if so, what will the development processes look like that support the creation of such software?
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Agile Planning Reduces Stress for Business and Developers
In The Freedom of Limited Capacity, Agile coach Mishkin Berteig wrote about what happened when he used Agile planning practices on his own business. By making his long work queue visible, he now had a better way to grapple with reality. Paradoxically, he also experienced a reduction in his stress level - in spite of his very visible backlog! The same effect has been observed on Agile teams.
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ScrumWorks Pro Announced
Danube Technologies this week announced the release of ScrumWorks Pro, an enhanced, commercially supported version of their free ScrumWorks product, created specifically to support the overwhelming customer requests for new features and professional support. The product provides support for business-value driven decision making.
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InfoQ Interview: Ron Jeffries on Running, Tested Features
At Agile2006, Ron Jeffries told InfoQ that tracking "Running Tested Features" is the essential element of Agility, from which all other practices and activities necessarily follow. Ron who took to the whiteboard to explain how RTF benefits customers, by helping helps teams deliver consistently and reliably.
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How Closely Should We Measure Productivity?
A goal of agile methodologies is to improve the productivity of software developers. Unfortunately, productivity can be difficult to measure. In a recent blog posting, Lidor Wyssocky argues against focusing too closely on quantifiable metrics, encouraging us instead to look at "soft evidence" for productivity gains.
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Network Computing Reader Poll: Drop the Buzzwords, Deliver the Goods
Over 700 IT managers responded to the 2007 Network Computing Readers' Survey, many of whom reported frustration with the internal strife and snake-oil salesmanship of technology vendors. Respondents recommended that vendors stop "promising capabilities that aren't there", and "address actual business problems, rather than chasing buzzwords."
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Article: SimpleTicket Railway Story
In this first installment of the Railway Stories series, we cover SimpleTicket, a newly open-sourced Rails app that provides insight into the progress and innovation enjoyed by Ruby on Rails advocates, and paints a vivid picture of a dynamic, modern startup.
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Jeff Sutherland Recommends Combining Scrum with CMMI Level 5
A paper proposed for the EUROPEAN SEPG 2007 conference, "Scrum and CMMI Level 5: The Magic Potion for Code Warriors," has triggered discussion in Scrum circles. One of its authors is Scrum co-creator Jeff Sutherland, whose blog addressed a common question: since Scrum can already bring an organization's process up to CMMI level 3, is it worth the time & effort to achieve CMMI level 5?
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Interview: David H. Hansson on the Future of Rails
I had the pleasure of asking my friend David some hard-hitting questions about the future of Rails in the enterprise, profiting from his success and whether a vendor will fork Rails someday. He was very confident and relaxed, so there are tons of entertaining and priceless comments on Rails adoption, service-oriented architecture and scaling Rails applications...
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Presentation: Ken Schwaber on Code Quality as a Corporate Asset
Scrum co-creator Ken Schwaber spoke at Agile2006 on code quality as a corporate asset. InfoQ presents video of his talk, The Canary in the Coalmine. Schwaber discussed how a degrading core codebase paralyses a team and negates any Agility gained through process improvement. He proposed strategies for management to identify, track and stop this downward spiral.
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Experience Report: UK Identity-Fraud Firm uses Agile to Ship in 9 months
Garlik, a UK based identify-fraud security company shared some of their recent success with Agile in an article on computer weekly. They built their main product, Datapatrol, from concept to completion in just 9 months and attributed their success to Agile practices and having a skilled dev team.
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How does Agile Development Shape Up in 2006? The VersionOne Survey
VersionOne Software this autumn conducted a global "State of Agile Development" survey, showing that changing requirements and priorities, and time-to-market are drivers in the move to Agile adoption. Companies of all sizes were represented, up to the large global corporations, and every industry vertical, from financial services, health care, and education to video games, government, and defense.
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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.