KBM's Web Log

2007/09/21

RUP: Iteration Planning : Brian Lyons

Having found the NumberSix blogs for the wrong reason, I find this very intersting short piece on when to do Iteration Planning by Brian.

One thing that has RUP diverging from other methods is when you create the Iteration Plan. Personally, I think this causes problems.

Other iterative development methods from Scrum to Barry Boehm’s Spiral Model start each iteration with a planning session for how the team will carry out the objectives defined in the higher-level plan. RUP ends each iteration with a plan for the next one. Considering that this is a one or two day variance, does it matter? I think it does.

Intersting and subtle point.

So RUP is wrong! Whaddya gonna do about it? I’ll tell you what: fix it!

The Rational Unified Process is a set of process content that conforms to the framework of the Unified Process. With v7 of the process it is initially provided in two configurations – RUP for Large Projects and a stripped down RUP for Small Projects – and it is installed along with Rational Method Composer, a tool to modify the process. Does this sound like a process that someone is telling you that you are not allowed to modify?

And a pragmatic answer. Perhaps I'll do this work myself!!

Brian Lyons: RIP

I never met Brian Lyons face-to-face but we did have one interaction after my "CMMI Made Practical" presentation in March. It is very sad to see a relatively young person with a young family pass away, especially one who was also very highly thought of in the inustry.

By a strange quirk of fate I arrived in S. Africe on 3rd September to do another presentation on CMMI - I guess we won't be exchanging thoughts on that one :-(

Found via Grady's blog.

2007/09/20

Do You Love IT Conversations? Show It!

From Phil Windley:

I hate public radio pledge drives. Who doesn’t. Nevertheless, I recognize the need. I hope you’ll forgive this low-key request for support for IT Conversations.

Add the button!!

Common Lisp Tutorial

Peter Siebel makes a plea:

So imagine my dismay when someone pointed out to me today the Google results for “lisp tutorial”. The top hit is a page which apparently hasn’t been updated since around 1999 and isn’t really a tutorial anyway, so much as a large list of links including a link to the Hyperspec when it was hosted at harlequin.com.1 The next few “lisp tutorial” hits are — with all due respect — exactly the sort of dated, dry tutorials that inspired me to write Practical Common Lisp in the first place and to do a deal with Apress to allow me to keep it online even after the dead tree version was published.

With that in mind I did a small bit of search engine optimization today to make sure that the phrase “Common Lisp tutorial” appears on the main page of the Practical Common Lisp web site. If you also think Lisp might be better served if PCL was at least one of the results returned to a would-be Lisper searching for a Lisp tutorial you can help out: if you have a web page where it would be reasonable to do so, consider linking to the url http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/ with a link text of “lisp tutorial” or “common lisp tutorial”. Yes, I’m asking you to participate in a Google bombing. But it’s for a good cause. Think of the children.

You know that he is right - I remember that 1999 page from when I started with Lisp - it has had its day. And Peter's book is excellent, with the first chapters being a very good tutorial.

So if you want a good Lisp Tutorial or Common Lisp Tutorial, look no further than here:

http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/

The initial chapter of Successful Lisp is also a good place to start .

2007/09/14

Smalltalk by Example: PDF and on Lulu

Want to get started with Smalltalk? Look no further than: Squeak by Example.

Released under Creative Commons "sharealike" license an can be used with Squeak (obviously) which is free and free!!

I have just started on it, so can't give a full review, but from a quick scan it looks very promising.

2007/09/08

A test post from Google Docs!!

How does this go?

It works!!

I wonder how labels can be added?

Back from South Africa

Just back from a business trip; when I say S.Africa it was actually just Joburg, and apart from a few drives to customers it was entirely Sandton, a suburb.

Weather was very nice - hot but not too hot. I was there just as winter turned to summer; apparently spring no longer happens!

A nation of great contrasts - shopping malls with lots of wealth on display vs. the townships I saw going to and fro to the airport.

I attended a conference where the message was about the changes required to move SA to being a software powerhouse like India. Perhaps these efforts with the investment taking place for hosting the World Cup in 2010 will help.

Martin Fowler turns TV critic: Dr Who

Martin Fowler gives a great introduction to Doctor Who. He does a great job of pointing out the real highlights (and there are many!)

This made me chuckle:

You see Doctor Who is only secondarily about entertainment, it's primary purpose was always to scare the living daylights out of small children. I may be too old now to get behind the sofa, but I do remember how much I enjoyed it.

I remember hiding behind the sofa - I swear that a black and white TV that vibrates wit h the theme tune is ideal for Dr Who. That said my kids love the new stuff even without the hiding!

2007/08/25

Live from Ulaanbaatar

Rob is the son of a friend of mine and is doing a year with VSO in Mongolia:

Upon arrival we made our base camp in a gir (a large tent which nomadic Mongolians use as their home). From here we went for a walk, going past traditional herdsmen and their cattle. Almost everyone I past was on horseback. It was fascinating to see the traditional, nomadic style of life still being followed in this region. Completely different to anything back in the UK!

2007/08/23

inbox zero

Merlin Mann talks about GTD etc. at Google:

Feedburner

Well, I didn't know Google had bought Feedburner - time to get back under my rock!

Anyhow, I have added this blog to Feedburner so I can see what all the fuss is about.

2007/08/10

No Dolphin Smalltalk, No Open Source Dolphin Smalltalk

There will no doubt be a number of you who would suggest that we Open Source Dolphin. Of course, you are free harbour such opinions and to discuss the idea on the newsgroup but please do not expect us to be persuaded. It simply will not happen! Both Blair and I dislike the Open Source movement intensely and we would rather see Dolphin gradually disappear into the sands of time than instantly lose all commercial value in one fell swoop.

......

At this point, I cannot sign off without commenting on the enthusiasm and talent in the Dolphin community that has sustained us all these years. There are people on the Dolphin newsgroup who have been with us since the early days back in 1997. There are a number of you who have supported Dolphin far beyond the call of duty and I sincerely thank you for this. I don't want to name names for fear that I forget someone but you know who you are and I thank you again. Doubtless, many of you will be disappointed by this decision but I hope that you understand now why this has to be.

Hmmm. The author seems to rule out Open Source as a viable business decision under any circumstances. Might have built a larger community around Dolphin, maybe even more profitable (especially with on-going client work)

2007/07/30

Getting Things Done, in Emacs

From credmp (via Sacha Chua)

A wonderful concept that has intrigued me for quite some time is David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Wikipedia has a good short story on what the process is and how it should work. This article however is about how I implement it into my daily routine at work to try and get the most out of a day. Firstly, I will introduce the software I utilize to get everything done.

....

In order to get my system up and running, in regards to the
Muse/Planner/Remember trinity, I have found the information and code
snippets of Sacha Chua extremely useful.

2007/07/11

Organisations are systems: agile or not

More wisdom from Patrick Logan:

I taught and coached agile software development a lot over the last many years. A common question was "What about metrics? I need an agile that supports metrics. Our organization does metrics. Or will." Often the people asking the question had little if any understanding of "metrics". Often they thought that "metrics" (the kind in "quotes") must be really complicated, and so this agile thing where you cheat and cut corners certainly must not "do metrics".

A focus on concrete and to-the-point metrics is so important, yet so elusive.

Do smaller (growing) companies do well until politics means that the goals of the organsiations , its sub-unts and individuals cannot easily be aligned?

2007/06/19

Planning your future

It has been said before, but here is a great article by Erin Malone on thinking about your future:

The point is, in the big picture, no one is going to look after your career for you, but you.

Many good points and a nice outline. Also some great discussion in the comments. Read It All!(tm)

2007/05/27

Programmatic changing of documentation in CL

From yrk:

SETF can be used to modify documentation: (setf (documentation 'foo 'function) "Common Lisp documentation is malleable").

2007/05/21

Distributed Systems vs. SOA

Some interesting perspectives on SOA from Pat Helland (who seems to be getting lots of links since going back to MS):

So, the move from distributed systems (one transactional scope --> one notion of time) to SOA (independent transactional scopes --> time based on the perspective of the user) is like moving from Newton's Universe to Einstein's Universe

and

In SOA (again, how I think of it), we are acknowledging the existence of independent machines. This affects the transactional scope (we end up with different chunks of data which cannot be updated by the same transaction) and we end up with independently evolving schema and operations for the different systems. This is a seminally different concept than distributed systems (at least in the way I think of them).

So:

In the presence of imperfect availability of knowledge, a business is forced to choose between closing down service (reducing availability of the service), over-booking, or over-provisioning. Indeed, if multiple systems (or humans) are extending commitments independently, they must choose between over-booking, over-provisioning, or some unknown balance between them. If I have 10,000 widgets to sell and 100 salespeople, I could allocate 100 to each sales-person and know that I have not over-booked if they go out and independently sell the widgets. To do this, though, I am almost certain to need extra inventory for the sales-people that don't sell all 100 of their widgets. Indeed, for most businesses, this is a ridiculously expensive proposition. So, an analysis is done on the statistics, a cost of over-booking is calculated, and allocations are given based on the expectations of selling the 100,000 widgets.

That is my summary in 3 quotes! Read it all to a) check on my understanding, b) to get the full subtlety

Technorati Tags: SOA

DSL or API?

From chromatic on ONLamp:

Confusingly, every example of a DSL I saw looked like something I would have called an API before my sudden immersive enlightenment.
If I’m confused about what a DSL is, you must be too. I took copious notes through the sessions on Friday and have devised a simple, ten-question test to help you determine whether a wad of code represents a DSL or an API.

Fun! So what is a DSL?