HMK's Spurious Thoughts Biased / Nicht immer ausgewogen

Tim Bray on XP and Agile:

Writing tests after you’ve written the code is boring and painful: writing them first (a key premise of XP) makes it more interesting, and thus less likely that you’ll skip them.
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Feature-at-a-time development makes development project schedules immensely more predictable
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Detailed specification, in advance, of the functions of a large software system is essentially impossible.

Make sure to read Tim’s posting for more context & insight.

Uncle Bob: Speed Kills.

Uncle Bob:

“I hope the next big thing is a consolidation of what we have learned over the last forty years. I hope the next big thing is the realization that software is not about hours worked, but about care. I hope the next big thing is the gradual understanding that developing good software is not about man-hours and raw labor; but about creativity, inventiveness, and a drive for elegance and beauty. I hope the next big thing is a change in attitude from big vanilla software groups, to small energetic teams. I hope the next big thing is the growth of professionalism and craftsmanship, and the realization that these are the attributes, not documented process or raw manpower, that will make our industry productive, accurate, and respected.

Fantastic article. ’nuff said.

Ned Batchelder on Managed Developer Testing and the change of culture required to successfully introduce automated developer testing in an organisation.
Amen to that. However, those obstacles are no excuse for not trying hard and being persistent.