The Mindset

The great software-development-methodology wars never cease to amaze me. Agile, Waterfall, XP, SCRUM, RUP… so many people are so occupied with convincing everyone around them that their favorite methodology is the ultimate answer to practically any question.
Why is this a problem? Because no one methodology will ever be able to solve all problems. The […]

I was working on my book yesterday. I read one of the chapters I had written and I wasn’t happy with it. It wasn’t the grammar, nor was it the phrasing. It just didn’t feel right. Something in its flow was awkward, although I couldn’t just put my finger on it.
So I started working […]

A classic.

Originally, the title of a paper by Fred Brooks suggesting software development is forever doomed to be a complex, unproductive and error prone task.

Until a while ago, this phrase was used mainly by managers trying to justify the quality of the work they are supposed to be responsible for. This usage was widely spread, […]

In a lecture I gave today about unit testing, I was asked what the rationale for writing unit tests is: wouldn’t it be better if developers used the same automated testing environment used by the QC team to continuously test their code?
At first, this seems like a logical proposition. If we already have an […]

There are many voices in the software industry arguing that the thing that describes our industry most is the fact that requirements are dynamic and customers are constantly changing their minds. This was the grounds for numerous methodologies and practices, all aimed at reducing the effect of this constant change. Some of these ideas are […]