Misc
I recently did a course at the local university on Software Engineering. At the beginning of the course I looked over the outline of the subject and there seemed to be some really good content. It covered traditional & agile project methodologies, some general communication and modelling chapters and finished off with testing. I was particularly excited to see the section on testing as this was something I learnt on my own and see great value in. The course has now just ended and I am very disappointed. ......
Recently I saw someone on twitter asking about incentives and if anyone had past experience with incentivizing work. I promised to respond with some of the experiences I have had in the past so here goes... **Disclaimer** - these are my experiences with incentives, generally in software development - in some other industries this may not be applicable – this is also my thinking at this point in time, with more experience my opinion may change. Incentivize at the level that you want people to group ......
So Microsoft had another Dev4Devs event and I got to present. My topic was an introduction to Reactive Extensions and I really enjoyed preparing for this one. For those who attended and those that are interested please find links to the slides and example code ......
I recently was involved in a conversation about the productivity of programmers and the seemingly wide range in abilities that different programmers have in this industry. Some of the comments made were reiterated a few days later when I came across a chapter in Code Complete (v2) where it says "In programming specifically, many studies have shown order-of-magnitude differences in the quality of the programs written, the sizes of the programs written, and the productivity of programmers". In line ......
I find it ironic that the more I am involved in the software industry, the more apparent it becomes that soft skills are just as if not more important than the technical abilities of a developer. One of the biggest challenges I have faced in my career is in managing client expectations to what one can deliver and being able to work with multiple clients. If I look at where things commonly go pear shaped, one area features a lot is where I should have said "No" to a request, but because of the way ......
I recently heard of the concept of a Legacy Code Retreat. Since I have attended and helped facilitate some normal Code Retreats I thought it might be interesting in trying a Legacy Code Retreat, but I have a few questions on how a legacy CR differs from a normal one. If anyone has attended a Legacy CR and has some suggestions on how best to host these event’s please leave a comment on what has worked for you in the past or if you have any answers to my questions below… Should you restrict the languages ......
Before I go into the contents of this post I would like to give a quick disclaimer – I have been asked to give review of the SQL Source Control webinar, my payment of the review is a free license of SQL Source Control from Red Gate. It’s great to have the license but I have no need for it as my company has already purchased a license of SQL Toolbelt from Red Gate which includes SQL Source Control. I might come across as a bit of a Red Gate fan boy, but it is because their tools have saved my bacon ......
For those out there that are interested… I am now one of the hosts of the Driven2Distraction podcast. Being a fan of podcasts like .Net Rocks and Hanselminutes for years now, I have always wanted to be involved in the recording of a podcast and now that time has finally come. What makes the Driven2Distraction podcast different from all the others out there is its uniquely South African flair. It’s focus is towards Software Development in the Southern Africa – and has a mix of “what happening locally” ......
For anyone out there that has a Samsung and wants to enable GSM modem tethering. Here are the steps….
Enable the Diagnosis Menu Option
Dial ##634# and press call
This will add a diagnosis mode to the phone.
Change Tethering Settings
In diagnosis mode dial *#7284# and it will prompt you for the tethered option.
That’s it!
I thought it would be interesting to blog out the evolution of our story cards. Several months ago I began work at a new organization that was implementing a variation of scrum. The used the typical post-it notes for stories. While the post-it notes were serving their purpose, there were a few area’s that we were having issues with: Some of the issues included the following: The post-it notes did not have a great stick quality. This meant that anything older than a few weeks was falling by the wayside ......
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