Previously I told that we are about to start a new business. Now that the company has got it’s name approved and entered all the official records, we are proud to announce that we will operate under the name OFFBEAT SOLUTIONS. Lauri has posted a nice explanation on what lies beyond the name.
The actual operation will begin 30.8.2010. If you want to be the first who will enjoy our march…. info@offbeat.fi.
It’s has been a bit quiet lately. I’ve obviously had something more important to do than write some blog posts. Here comes the explanation. Read the rest of this entry »
These days many people talk and write about iterative and incremental development and most often those terms are used inter-changeably. Some people, specifically Scrum folks, even use the term sprint. Agile software development methods are said to be BOTH iterative and incremental. So what does it mean?
Many of Microsoft’s technologies have been renamed to be consistent with each other and to form uniform product lines. Most of the base technologies are called foundation technologies. A rush at that arena was at the launch of .NET Framework 3.0. Then was released the new user interface technology Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), formerly known as Avalon; the new model for distributed programming Windows Communication Foundation (WCF), formerly known an Indigo and the underlying technology for all new workflow applications, Workflow Foundation (which was then called WWF, but the official acronym is now WF).
Now, at the release of Sharepoint 2010, the lite version formerly known as Windows Sharepoint Services, will be renamed to Sharepoint Foundation.
Finally, the naming of these fundamental technologies will achieve it’s closure: The programming framework and paradigm that we originally called Lightning, was released under the name .NET Framework. Now, at the release of version 4.0 the framework will also be renamed to conform to this naming convention and as expected, the new name will be Windows Technology Foundation. To celebrate this remarkable milestone, Microsoft has acquired the well known site and will continue to bring daily news about all WTF technologies.
Oftentimes people are assigned into projects by looking into resource pools and determining some key characteristics of each resource: what is the current utilization rate, what do reservation calendars look like and on some more sophisticated scenarios, also each person’s skill sets are taken into consideration. But this model is far from ideal for numerous reasons. Read the rest of this entry »
Behind every person is an inner story. A story that describes her world-view and thus her behaviour. The story may not be consciously written but silently adopted – and adapted – from local contemporary culture, childhood, genes and so on. All the books you read and stories you heard contributed to your story.
But there are sub-stories also. In physics we have had Newtonian and Einsteinian stories, and these stories constantly change. In this post I urge you to think what are your stories of software development. There are at least three different types of stories that define you as a software developer.
Read the rest of this entry »
Listening to Ivar Jacobson’s talk about closing the gap between business and IT gave me an idea, what software development methodologies are all about.
During the 50 years of software development we have seen a plethora of software development methods. Every ten years comes a new methodology, a new solution, to the same old problems we have been fighting for the whole 50 years. And will be fighting, dare I say, the next 50 years. One weapon used in the war is development methodologies. But what really is the essence of a methodology?
Inspired by my colleaque’s post about best books on web development, I decided to share my list of books about software development on general. I found a good web site for sharing books and reviews, GoodReads. I’ve shared the most interesting books from past few years. Books vary from programming to designing, from project management to team leading, from methodologies to practises. As I believe, that over-specialization kills productivity, I like to have a broad understanding to the craft.
Here’s my list: http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/2854969?sort=rating.
Now that Visual Studio 2010 beta 2 is out, some new information about the packaging of the product is also revealed. Gone is the old jumble of nearly dozen different flavors. Now everything comes in three different products: Visual Studio Professional, Visual Studio Premium and Visual Studio Ultimate. Read the rest of this entry »
Here are some highlights from the first day in Scan-Agile conference.