NotAtPDC and ICE Edmonton session material
Thanks to those who attended the session that I did on “A (Failed?) Project From the Perspective of a Team Lead”. As you know from being there, the slide deck by itself is not all that useful. Inste
archive: 2009
Failure: Establishing Flow
Like my past posts in this series, we’re going to talk about failures and I’ve had this problem at a number of places that I’ve been employed or contracted. I just can’t maintain flow. Developers al
Failure: Napkins and a completed product are not good enough
Continuing on my journey through failures and the lessons that I’ve learned, we’re going to make a stop at a project that I did when I worked at a very small (but successful) development shop. I start
Failure: Interviewing for a position
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes – Oscar Wilde Continuing on my series of posts themed around failure, we’re here to look at an interview that I once did. It resulted in me taki
Failure: An introspective series on those I’ve created and endured
I recently posted about Hiring Internally and it turned out to be about the failure in leadership that I had on a project. I’m fine with that. For those of you that don’t know, I fail. I do so spec
Hiring internally
In our Brownfield Application Development book, and in previous posts on this blog, Kyle and I have talked about the different personalities that you can encounter while working on a development proje
Apply SRP to your emails….please
I recently got an email that had no fewer than eight significant topics in it. Yes, it was a long email. As a result of this email I was unable to remember and act on all the different topics. Sound
Quick take on Bing
I’ve been playing around with Microsoft’s new, yet to be released, search engine (bing.com) for the last couple of days. Miguel Carrasco has done a pretty detailed review of it’s capabilities here.
A little more WCF NHibernate
As part of my recent changes to the WCF-NHibernate code I have, I declared that there wasn’t going to be a way to handle automatic transaction rollbacks when WCF faults were going to be raised. I was
The Possessive Developer
Wrapping up our first pass at Development Project Archetypes we look at a common culprit on brownfield teams. During your first week on the project you’re assigned to have a mentor who has written a l
The 'Oooo...Shiney!' Developer
For the final few posts in the Development Project Archetypes we’ll focus on developers. An incestuous cousin to the Front of the Magazine Architect, this developer is easily distracted by any new tec
The Enhancing Tester/QA
Still avoiding developers, we continue talking about archetypes… Usually found in the confines of an organization that has heavily silo’d roles and responsibilities, the Enhancing Tester will be assig
The Over Protective DBA
Deviating from the developer sphere, we continue the Development Project Archetypes… A good many application require access to a database. If you’re lucky, you’ll have free rein over the database to m
The Hero Developer
Another in the Archetypes series… Everyone loves a hero. The PM, the architects and the client relish the long hours he puts into delivering results. When the client is told we don’t have the budget o
WCF and nHibernate redux
A while back I posted about a small framework that I wrote to make handling of nHibernate Sessions easier in a WCF world. There were a couple of problems with it and I’ve spent some time fixing it re
The "Experienced" Developer
The next post in the Software Development Archetypes series… Every project needs experienced people to improve the odds of succeeding. Skilled developer resources are hard to come by so you’re really
The Skeptic
Another post in the Development Project Archetypes series… Every time that the team attempts to implement a technique, process or technology that will address a project problem and better the team’s a
The Disinterested Developer
Transitioning into the realm of developers, we continue the Development Project Archetypes series… Though you will usually see the Disinterested Developer working diligently whenever you walk by, you
The Ex-Tech Project Manager
Resuming the Development Project Archetypes series… Monday morning and the Ex-Tech PM appears on the edge of the status meeting as an observer to the team’s daily ritual. One by one the developers tel
The Front of the Magazine Architect
The next post in the archetypes series… Once a month, every month, she visits the team and blurts out “We should use/do/implement <insert technology of the month here>.” The monthly rhythm of th
The Process-Heavy PM
Another in the archetypes series… This person is one of the most feared by developers around the world. While the team is working to deliver software, he is asking them to write action reports and det
The Disenfranchised Client
Continuing the series on archetypes… Beaten down by months of missed deadlines, misunderstood requirements and repeated defects, the Disenfranchised Client has lost all faith in the team’s ability to
The Absentee Client
The next instalment in the archetypes series… When the project starts the Absentee Client engages the team just long enough to build up some velocity. As soon as he perceives some progress being made,
Ivory Tower Architect
This is a commonly known archetype in the development world. Since it’s commonly known I figure it’s a great place to start this series of posts. Sporadically swooping into meetings with the rest of
Development Project Archetypes
As part of writing our book, Kyle and I have spent some time coming up with archetypes that exist on many of the software projects that we’ve been on. Our goal is just to describe what we’ve seen so
IIS7 & WCF error
If you’re getting: HTTP Error 404.3 - Not Found The page you are requesting cannot be served because of the extension configuration. If the page is a script, add a handler. If the file should be do
Brownfield Application Development Training Course
Over the last few months people have been asking about training on the fundamental practices that I use when doing software development. In combination with the soon to be pending (honest, it’s al
Is the Iron Triangle Accurate?
The Iron Triangle is a common way to refer to the different aspects of a software development project. In his great article, The “Broken Iron Triangle” Software Development Anti-Pattern, Scott Ambler
Victoria Code Camp wrap-up
As always the Victoria Code Camp was a great success and loads of fun. The biggest disappointment was that the weather back here in Alberta wasn’t worse, thus making Victoria’s temperate days more ap
SRP at Edmug
Last night at Edmug Dave Woods, Jason Hunt, Jonas Avellena, Steven Rockarts and I presented on the different components of Uncle Bob’s S.O.L.I.D principles. My responsibility was the SRP portion. I