Jurgen Appelo on Agile and more

Summary: Some interesting stuff from Jurgen Appelo.

Jurgen Apello just published a new quarterly list of the Top 100 Blogs for Developers. I'm glad that Jurgen's own blog made the list because it's gooood. Here are some quotes from a few recent articles:

From AINO: Agile In Name Only:

"I want to suggest the acronym AINO (Agile In Name Only) for those cases where there is a significant gap between preaching and practising the agile approach."

From The Complex Manifesto for Software Development:

"I believe it is time for a new manifesto. A manifesto of complexity. With this manifesto we must recognize that it is human to prefer simple solutions, but also that the world is more complex than we think."

From The Decline and Fall of Agilists:

"Agility is about staying successful in ever-changing environments. That's it. There's nothing more to it. This includes defying any expert who claims that practice X is essential for your organization. Because, quite likely, practice X happens to be something this expert is very good at, and is willing to assist you with, for a considerable consultancy fee."

While we're on the topic of Agile development, here is a very good and brief interview with Jurgen Appelo, where he discuss his experiences of introducing and using Scrum and the curse of dogmatic use of "recipes for success" in software development:


On a lighter note, here is some humor:

From Thank You, Stupid Americans (WARNING: If you easily get offended, do not read this piece):

"Americans are stupid, and I love them for it. Because stupidity leads to simplicity, and simplicity is exactly what we need in software development."

See also:
100 Interview Questions for Software Developers

According to Bob

Summary: Quotes from (and links to) recent articles by Bob Lewis.

Here are some good quotes from the recent articles by Bob Lewis.

From Spotting weak managers:

"[B]ad metrics are worse than no metrics: If you have no metrics you’re ignorant and know it. Bad metrics, in contrast, give either the wrong answer to the right question or answer the wrong question."

From To cut your budget, hire expensive employees:

"You know and I know that any number of mediocre leaders mistake getting along with strong performance, while considering employees who make waves to be undesirable troublemakers. When they have to lay off staff their troublemakers are the first to go; the employees they personally like the best are the ones who get to stick around. That means exceptional IT professionals are pounding the pavement right now, waiting for you to find them."

From Methodologies are fine, so long as they aren’t processes:

"No, the problem doesn’t lie in the methodologies themselves. It lies in their cooption by those who turn them into religions, complete with orthodoxies, splinter groups, apostasies, and all the other distractions religiosity introduces to prevent potentially productive employees from accomplishing something useful."

Newsletters to keep

Summary: Newsletter recommendations for application developers.

Most of the news come to me via RSS subscriptions (Google Reader is my friend), but there are several (technical) newsletters, which I prefer getting via e-mail. These newsletters are not very frequent, so I do not mind keeping them in my inbox until I get a chance to read them. Here are the subscriptions I recommend (to software developers):

• SitePoint TechTimes (bi-weekly)
  Covers technical aspects of Web development. From the latest PHP techniques to advanced HTML, JavaScript, DHTML, XML, ASP, AJAX, and more.
• SitePoint Design View (monthly)
  Addresses such subjects as usability, page layout, graphic design software techniques, accessibility issues, and all the biggest challenges confronting web designers today.
• Windows Secrets (weekly, plus occasional updates)
  Offers great tips on Microsoft Windows, including tools and utilities, security, and more.
• RedGate Simple-Talk (twice per month)
  Publishes practical, in-depth articles and opinion on SQL Server and .NET development.
• The Code Project Newsletter (weekly)
  Weekly site news, summary of latest articles, and special announcements.

If you have a newsletter to recommend, please leave a comment.

From real Steve to fake Bill

Summary: A few bits of entertainment and knowledge related to Apple and Microsoft, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

If you're following the buzz surrounding Steve Jobs and/or Apple (iPhone price cut, rebates, etc), you may enjoy the following articles:

The Puppet Master: Love Steve Jobs or hate him, just don't ignore him by Robert X. Cringely (interesting)
Dear early iPhone adopters: Yeah, we f****d you by "Fake Steve Jobs" (funny)
Larry's bold idea by "Fake Steve Jobs" (funny)

Not to be forgotten, here is your weekly dose of (well-deserved, yet good-natured) Microsoft mockery:

Channeling Microsoft Execs by John C. Dvorak (funny)

And a twist of iPod vs. Zune humor:

California by Joel Spolsky

Best of ranting

Summary: Links to articles every software professional should read.

There are few things that I enjoy more than a good rant. An insightful article or a helpful blog post can make my day, but a really good rant really gets me going. When I find a good rant, I can't stop reading it. I pass it to friends and co-workers expecting them to get excited as well.

What makes a good rant? The main difference between ranting and regular writing is emotional involvement attached to the former. When people rant they address issues dear to them, something they lived through and desperately need to share.

To be able to rant you must care about the subject, but this does not automatically make the rant good. To make it good, offer a unique perspective on the issue. Give it a personal spin, but don't just repeat someone else's viewpoint.

If you raise a controversy, you can be sure that you will offend people (there is no lack of people seeking opportunities to be offended), but at least try not to be offensive intentionally; otherwise, you will sound arrogant and not that many people enjoy other people's arrogance.

While happy rants are not uncommon, most reflect on bad experiences. If you start negative ranting, see if you can switch from anger and bitterness to irony (you may get away by substituting irony with sarcasm). Subtle humor is a must, but do not try to be funny too hard.

Steer away from profanity, or at least, reduce it to the minimum. There is absolutely no need to repeat f**k and f*****g in every other sentence unless you're trying to impress high-school sophomores.

Finally, keep your sentences simple. Don't pretend to be overly sophisticated, especially if you are not.

Here is the list of my favorite (mostly technical) rants (well, some of these are not rants per se, but they are good reads, so I'll keep them here until I move them to a better place):

Body Count: Why Moving to India Won't Really Help IT by Robert X. Cringely
Clothes for the Soul by Steve Yegge
Free Electron by Michael "Rands" Lopp
Good Agile, Bad Agile by Steve Yegge (also Egomania Itself)
Interviewing with Google by Benji Smith
I'm With Stupid: How Having Friends Might Be the Key to Both Privacy and Identity by Robert X. Cringely
Joe by Michael "Rands" Lopp
Living Out Loud: Voice Messaging From Hell by Larry Gross
Making Waves: How to Turn Around the U.S. Tech Economy in One Week With No New Laws, Regulations, or Tax Breaks Required and Without Moving to India by Robert X. Cringely
My First BillG Review by Joel Spolsky
One-Size Frameworks Rarely Fit All by Josh Lane
Our Own Damned Fault: When It Comes to Understanding Why Government Doesn't Understand High-Tech and Why Financial Markets Seem to be Working Against Our Own Interests, Well, We Did It to Ourselves by Robert X. Cringely
Programmer Superstitions by Jesse Liberty
Silicon Superstitions: When we don't understand a process, we fall into magical thinking about results by Jef Raskin
Technocentrism: The Path To Zealotry? by Brian Kuhn
The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!) by Joel Spolsky
The Craft of Programming by Alan Cooper
The Immaturity of CMM by James Bach
The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code by Joel Spolsky
The Root Of The Matter by Lidor Wyssocky (also The Incapability Immaturity Model)
The Software Practitioner Triad by Alan Cooper
The 7 Deadly Sins of Software Development by Jon Skeet
Tour de Babel by Steve Yegge
Universally Unloved by Alan Cooper
What Makes Good Code Good? by Paul DiLascia
What's wrong with SDLC's and the 3 rules of moron-dynamics by Tom Shope

If you speak Russian, you may enjoy the following:

Мои советы: программировать: как не надо программировать by Артем

Additional references:
Blog Interesting - 32 Ways to Keep Your Blog from Sucking

My lame writings

Summary: Links to my articles, which some magazines were silly enough to publish.

My version of The Old Man and the Sea is not quite ready, but these articles are available:

• Protect It: Safeguard Database Connection Strings and Other Sensitive Settings in Your Code, MSDN Magazine, November 2003.
• Data Deployment: Streamline Your Database Setup Process with a Custom Installer, MSDN Magazine, September 2004.
• Dissecting Error Messages, Dr. Dobb's Journal, May 2005.
• Write a Better Windows Service, Visual Studio Magazine, August 2005.
• It’s About Time: Localizing Time in ASP.NET Applications, asp.netPRO, January 2007 (I cannot find the article at the publisher's site, which requires paid subscription, but here is a PDF version of the article). [UPDATE: Penton Media bought asp.netPRO and now the article is available online.]