Agile Otter Blog

If you were mentoring someone who is pretty new in java, you would surely tell them about JUnit and your favorite mocking framework and the language grammar. However, you know that Java is a culture and a history and a spoken language as much as a written language. You would start talking about jakarta, or tomcat, or a DI, or a bean, or a war file, or eclipse workspaces and your apprentice would scratch his head and stammer.  The truth of the matter is that the grammar isn't but 10% of what java programmers know. Which projects would you have your student study in order to soak up the rich history, culture, and language of the java programmer? What are Java's greatest hits and misses?

The term velocity is very well-chosen. It means speed in a certain direction, with the intention that it refers to the teams rate of travel toward a product release.  I have suggested that velocity is just capacity and my intention was good and maybe even right in many ways. Velocity is the practical measure of our capacity being applied toward the completion of a release. The term still stands superior to my older suggestion. Lets start with the definition that velocity is the speed of progress in a given direction. The direction part gets missed. People (including my slightly younger self) want to do things like track bugs (" failure demand ") as velocity. It might be good to see how much capacity is being lost to failure demand, but it is not velocity toward the same goal, not really.  We don't want to know that the team is busy, we want to see when the project will be done. So we do not count bugs toward velocity. We want to see quality problems drive velocity...

My recent article on Overtime and Agile Teams was accepted and published in Software Quality Connection .  Here are a few statements extracted from the article to summarize its direction: "Predicating project plans on constant overtime is a bad idea."  "Agile requires whole people." "Overtime is for bumps." "You have to ask if your overtime is hiding problems instead of exposing them so that the team can solve them."

What I need to replace when I get the new machine: Chrome, Firefox, Midori: Browsers - usually two or more open at one time. gvim, git, svn, poor ole' cvs: Essentials for software dev, b/c I often have three or four bash sessions open. Miro, Gpodder: audio and video subscribe/play - free video, audio, kept consistent. FBReader, Calibre: ebook & magazine readers -- I need to move my ebook collection, too. OpenShot, Arista transcoder, mencoder, Istanbul: video editing, transcoding, and screen capture Inkscape, Gimp,  F-Spot:  svg drawing, image editing, image manager OpenOffice: free office suite w/ word processor, drawing, spreadsheet, presentation FreeMind: mind mapping Skype, TeamViewer: remote pairing Rhythmbox: music player and access to UbuntuOne DRM-free music store. Eclipse: rare instances when I need to use an IDE (I don't do much Java). Most of the stuff I do is with these.  I am surprised that it's such a short list, but programming is mostly in...

I do everything as a geek would do it, because I am a geek. This extends to buying a computer. I'm picking out my next home-wherever-I-am now, and I'm wanting to ask questions that nobody answers. Here's what I'm about: Does it come with a non-shiny screen? I don't know how "glare" ever became a feature. If I'm just reading and editing text files, will the battery last all through a 6-hour flight? How much battery life can I get if I'm programming in python with autonose running?  When I put Ubuntu on it, will it find drivers for everything? Video? Wifi? Camera?  Which extended function keys won't work in Linux? Will the oversensitive touchpad register a mouse activity when I come within 1/2 inch of it? Can I shut it off? How badly will I get burned if I put the laptop on my knees while compiling a .NET project?  Is there enough RAM for me to run my OS, a windows virtual box with VS.NET and resharper in it, a browser on the side? Can...