April 2006 Entries
Check out the “Squeet box” on the left hand panel. It allows subscribers to keep up with blogs via email, which is pretty cool; but there is more to Squeet than that
The Squeet community of publishers and readers determine what's hot in the sydicated feed world by "buzzing" articles here, on the FeedBuzz home page, or directly in the articles delivered via email. FeedBuzz is about participation and discovery.
So get over there and check it out.
Tag: Squeet
Whoo hoo, Avi Bryant is keeping Smalltalk in the news with his Seaside web application framework, as you can see from this Dr. Dobbs article.
Everyone is trying to find just the right mix of interoperating components, languages, and standards to make this somewhat more bearable. Seaside, developed by Avi Bryant and the Seaside community, is yet another web application framework (YAWAF?). It is squarely aimed at all web application developers, but will likely have the biggest impact with the population of object-toting Smalltalkers who still seem to be lurking about (Note: The author is one).
Tags: Smalltalk, Seaside
Recently I attended a talk by Clarke Ching, of Agile Scotland, at which he showed many places where Agile was better than Waterfall. One of the themes was that Agile will surface architectural failures earlier and cheaper, as an architectural failure will surface on the first end to end test on the first iteration.
In general, I agree with everything Clarke said at the meeting, and I do believe that Agile is better than Waterfall in almost every regard. However, I did come across a situation recently where the problem would have surfaced earlier and cheaper using Waterfall than it did using Agile. The situation is one in which the Subject Matter Expert (SME) turns out not to be an expert in the subject under consideration in the iteration!
We start our iterations with a one day workshop where the functionality, business rules, design decisions and acceptance criteria for the iteration are agreed. In this particular case, this was iteration 7 and we were, something like, 105 days into a 180 day project. We started the meeting and were told by the SME that they didn’t really know how this particular business function worked. So that’s that iteration gone. The SME then had to take advise from industry, off-line, and get back to us with a set of requirements, which extended the iteration past its budgeted number of days.
Now, in Waterfall, this lack of knowledge would have surfaced during the preparation of the documentation, right at the start, before coding began and could have been rectified more cheaply. So, you see, Agile is not a magic bullet, you still have to manage it carefully.
Tags: Agile, Scrum
You probably know this already, but as the site says
We need your help to spread the word. Bookmark this site, talk about it on your site/blog, toss the link to your friends on IM.
So, get yourself over there and use the icons for your feeds. I’ll be updating my site shortly.
Do you work as a web dev? Yeah? Well here’s something that’ll scare ya.
Tag: European Patents
I might be a little late to the punch here, but I’ve just noticed on PeteL’s blog that all the Microsoft express editions are going to be free, free free!
if you've been using Visual Web Developer Express, or have been holding off, check it out! The final word came down today that the Express versions of Visual Studio are going to be free! Up until now, there was the understanding that if you wanted to get a copy after November 7th, 2006, you'd have to pay about $50, but this "threat" has been removed!
Tags: Microsoft Express Edition
IGN: Top 10 Tuesday: Worst In-Game Quotes. Is sporting the 10 worst in-game quotes of all time, but we all knew what was going to be at number one, didn’t we?
Tag: Humour
I've updated the netBake site with the latest progress; you can catch up here.
Tags: netBake, Bakery Software
It's the Flora London Marathon today ( results here). Congratulations to everyone who finished!
Tag: Flora London Marathon
I've agreed to give a talk about AJAX in Dundee on 4th May. You can get the details here. So, if you are in the area, why not pop in and heckle me? :)
Tag: AJAX
In a previous post, I said I'd have some exciting news about podcasting in the next week or two. Well it turns out that things have moved a little faster than I thought they were going to and so I can tell you now.
We have been given the job of blogging and podcasting the behind the scenes activities of the Carnoustie Links Management Committee, as they gear up for the 2007 Open Championship. The site will have blog entries and podcasts from key members of staff and will give golf fans a unique insight into what it takes to stage one of the biggest events in the golf calendar.
You can keep up with what is going on at http://www.carnoustiegolflinks.co.uk/blog
Tag: Carnoustie, Carnoustie Golf, Open 2007
Ever wondered how lawyers got to be as trustworthy as estate agents and politicians? Well I can give you an example. About four years ago we moved into our new house. Shortly after, work started to upgrade the road near our house from a single carriageway to dual carraigeway.
Despite paying a lawyer to do a search this work came as a total surprise to us - so money well spent there then. Anyway, the UK government provides statutory compensation for people like us, close to road building work. It's simple to claim, you get a lawyer, he makes a claim, the local authority in which the road is built pay you the compensation and the government pay the lawyer. Good stuff.
Now, you can't claim this compensation until the road has been open for a year, which is coming up in our case. So, through our letter boxes have come a flood of adverts from lawyers willing to take up our case on a no win no fee basis, for 10% of any compensation they win for us.
Talk about taking the piss! Firstly, it's not a case of winning compensation, it's statutory compensation, the "other side" as it were, aren't contesting anything! Secondly, the government pay the lawyers fees, so they are getting paid to do the job, and then, they want to take 10% of our compensation!!
The absolute best bit though, is that if you are dumb enough to sign up with these crooks, you can't go with another lawyer without paying a fee!! Fantasic! How is this even legal? Thankfully, we had the situation explained to us before hand, so we threw their adverts in the bin, where they belong.
Tag: Lawyers
I have some really exciting podcasting news coming up in the next week or two, so stay tuned. In the meantime, while I was testing my podcasting software, I created The Rifleman's Creed, mainly for my daughter who is in the cadets and is army mad. Download it if you like and let me know what you think.
Tags: Podcasting, mp3, the rifleman's creed
The latest update on our bakery software is available on the product site here.
Tags: C# 2.0, Scrum, netBake
Well the holidays are over and I'm back to work today. :( Still not to worry. I've updated the progress on sprint 6 for the netBake product. You can keep up with the latest across on the product blog here.
Tags: netBake, scrum, C#, bakery software
I pick up the weather (via metar) from Dundee Airport and I display it on the left hand bar. Here's the weather from earlier today
Dundee at 1550 GMT
Wind: from the N at 16 MPH gusting to 28 MPH (24 KT)
Visibility: greater than 7 mile(s)
Sky conditions: partly cloudy
Weather: light snow showers
Temperature: 41 F
Are you kidding me?! It's the 9th of April for heaven's sake, stop with the snow already!
Tag: Dundee Weather
In my previous post, about the Glasgow Science Centre, I mentioned we'd programmed robots to explore an alien planet. Well you can watch a short clip of our robot doing it's thing here.
Tags: Robots, Glasgow Science Centre
We are right in the middle of the wild bird risk area for the bird flu outbreak, you can see a map of the area here.
Tag: Bird flu Scotland
Yip, I'm afraid so. First, let me start by saying that I've not been on any agile training course, so what I'm saying is just an extrapolation of my experience, your mileage my vary.
Why do I think that training is a waste of time then? Simple really; training courses can only really take one of two routes. Route one is where you are taught the general principles and route two is where you are taught from case studies or the instructor's own experience.
Now, if you are on a course where the instructor takes route one, you are wasting your time as you can pick up the general principles, from any of the agile methodology web sites, with just a couple of hours reading. If the insturctor takes route two, you are wasting your time because what worked for him, on his projects, may not work for you. The people are different; different engineers, different customers, different dynamics altogether. Hell, what works for you on one project may not work for you on another project, so what chance has the intructor's experiences got of working for you?
So what can you do? The best you can do is to get a good grounding in the general principles of the agile methodolgy you want to use, and then adapt the methodolgy to what works for you from project to project. In other words, you have to be agile :)
Tag: Scrum, agile methods
We met up with my cousin yesterday and had a great day out at the Glasgow Science Centre. They had a cool workshop on robots where we programmed our own robot to negotiate the terrain of an alien planet. They also had a great lecture from a sound engineer on some of the "tricks of the trade" used by some "pop stars". All and all it was a great day out. We thoroughly recommend it. You can see the pictures here.
Tag: Glasgow Science Centre
...and let's get the flock out of here! We knew it would be when, not if, bird flu would arrive in this country, but I didn't expect it to arrive so close to home. Tonight, it's been announced that bird flu has been found, in a wild swan in a village in Fife, not too far from where we stay. You can read more about it here.
Tag: Bird flu Scotland
With the Dundee half marathon fast approaching, I was out for an eight mile AT run this morning. The purpose of an AT run is to increase your Anaerobic Threshold. But that's not really the point of this post.
When I got back from the run I wanted to make sure that my average heart rate was on or around my AT. Whilst flicking through the functions of my heart rate monitor, I came across an attribute that said my calorie expenditure was 1,003 and my question was how does it know? I mean, I didn't input my weight or anything; the only thing the monitor knows is my heart rate and duration of training. So, from these measurements, how does it calculate my calorie expenditure?
Tag: Training
I'm on holiday this week and yesterday we had a great day out at Stirling Castle. You can see the pictures here.
Tags: Stirling, Scottish History, Castles
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