He is currently a Program Manager at Microsoft for SQL Modeling Servcies (aka Oslo). His post walks through the early 1990’s from DB-Library, ODBC, OLE DB, RDO, ADO, ADO.NET, LINQ. Up through Entity Framework, WCF Data Services (code name Astoria) and now the “M” language and Quadrant.

Data Services transform any number of diverse data sources into something accessible through a simple REST-based exchange protocol.

In fact, Microsoft expects that using such protocols will become increasingly popular, as it allows data providers and consumers to evolve independently from their programming model.

Taken as a whole, this trend can be described as a trend toward modeling.

via Doug Purdy

I picked up Rachel Davies’s book recently. Rachel is fairly well known in the London agile community, I’ve read her blog over the years, and heard about various projects she’s worked on. Anyway to my thoughts on her book:

• First off the book is completely commute friendly
• There are a lot of valid point in this book that are not just applicable to agile coaching – chapter 2 “Working with People” is a good example
• I’ve heard of Gold Cards (Page 54) but never seem them used, and given the nature of front office business driven projects, I’m curious to know if anyone has managed to use them in finance. One can see the benefits of Gold Cards, it’s just the age old problem of convincing the die hard non-agile PM
• Daily Standup’s (chapter 5) is worth a read. I’ve seen so many issues with stand-ups; “Establishing a Team Focus (page 64) is very common, primarily due to the team meeting mentality.
• “Setting the Time” is also very common. Some software engineers I know prefer stand-ups at the end of the day for certain reasons – unfortunately the reason in this case where based on a hijacker (page 73).
• “Understanding What to Build” (chapter 6) contains some real gems from the perspective of stories. I suspect we’ve all seen the projector syndrome problem (page 79 and again on 91 )
• And then there’s the Number Madness problem (page 92).
• “Be Realistic” (page 99) is another common issue that new agile team encounter, and unfortunately they are often driven down the wrong road by senior management who don’t really understand agile
• VersionOne and Rally are two such agile tools that can sometimes lead to micromanagement (page 101). I wonder what Rachel’s view of VersionOne/Rally is? If a project is large, with many scrum teams, and a multi year duration, cards are probably not going to cut it. Obviously with VersionOne and other such tools, the issues of micromanagement and projector’s maybe encountered.
• As blogged previously, a real issue in a lot of sell-side companies is the inability to place a team board near the team (page 107). Portable boards (page 110) is very nice, especially if the team sits away from a wall
• 9.2 (page 124) is very relevant since Done may mean different things to different people on a team
• Quality Center is one of the preferred bug tracking tools from a QA teams perspective. However, it unfortunately leads to a hidden backlog (page 131). This is an primary example of why teams often need an agile coach to help steer them back onto the agile path, and help educate senior management. Remember, the job of a tester is to “prevent defects” rather than collect them (page 136).
• I’m a big believer in “Getting Feedback Early” (page 132)
• Velocity (page 134) and over commitment. Don’t get me started on these items. The number of projects I’ve seen over the years where project managers (PM) just don’t get the concept of velocity is shocking. It’s almost like the waterfall PM’s are only prepared to accept agile if they can take the pieces of agile that fit into their waterfall world, and ignore the rest. Obviously when the process breaks down, it’s Mr Agile’s fault
• Continuous Integration is an Attitude, Not a Tool (page 144)
• Demo meetings should NOT be optional (page 171)
• Retrospectives are important (chapter 13), but similar to demo meetings are often forgotten due to time . Designing a Retrospective (page 192) is worth following if you haven’t done one before.
• Page 201 explain why I writing postings like this

In summary I think Agile Coaching is worth the read. If you happen to be working in an agile team where there is no coach, this book will help you and your team move forwards.

]]> Uncategorized http://www.knowing.net/index.php/2009/11/20/pirating-reputation-in-the-consulting-market/ A cautionary tale from the iPhone market in which a successful app developer discovered that an unscrupulous development house included his product in their portfolio. I can attest that this happens. I have had direct experience with a component that, in retrospect, was almost certainly stolen and reverse-engineered. When confronted with irrefutable proof that an identical [...] http://www.knowing.net/?p=4292 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:52:21 -0800 A cautionary tale from the iPhone market in which a successful app developer discovered that an unscrupulous development house included his product in their portfolio.

I can attest that this happens. I have had direct experience with a component that, in retrospect, was almost certainly stolen and reverse-engineered. When confronted with irrefutable proof that an identical component was in the hands of a competitor, the Indian subcontracting company said “Wow! They must have stolen our component!” (There’s no proof they were lying, but the circumstantial evidence was substantial.)

CopySourceAsHtml (free on CodePlex) will do exactly what it says. It’s a Visual Studio 2008 add-in. It adds a “Copy As Html” menu item in your right click menu inside Visual Studio. The source code will be copied with all its color coding intact, perfect for blogging.

See the results in this post.

]]> Uncategorized http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Lab49Blog/~3/3vZghnwbPBg/ In a previous blog entry I wrote about the now ancient announcement that spring 2.5 would be available. On the 2nd anniversary of that announcement I would like to examine the things I am looking forward to in Spring 3.0. Release Announcement: 13/11/2009 5 cool things available in Spring 3.0 Java 5 fully used throughout the whole [...] http://martinaharris.com/?p=129 Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:00:00 -0800 In a previous blog entry I wrote about the now ancient announcement that spring 2.5 would be available. On the 2nd anniversary of that announcement I would like to examine the things I am looking forward to in Spring 3.0.
Release Announcement: 13/11/2009
5 cool things available in Spring 3.0

Java 5 fully used throughout the whole [...]

• Hosting HTML
• Context menus
• WCF and REST enhancements
• Support for RIA Services
• Drag & Drop
• Running out of sandbox for trusted apps
• Sharing components between .NET 4 and SL 4

Lot of other things too.  I’m excited to start using this.  Also a shout out to Tim Heuer – he has helped me on a few things before and I got a chance to meet him today.

Those of you following NewsGang will know why I am very excited about these Silverlight developments.

Silverlight 4 not only brings in all these features, but also a pile of others. Interestingly, they seem to be making a direct pitch against Adobe AIR with many of the features. The new Elevated Trust Applications feature (for out-of-browser apps), enables a host of features typically reserved for desktop applications: Local file access; Notifications API; Full-screen full-keyboard access; Cross-domain policy-free networking; and Drop targets. Of course, features aside, the huge advantage of the Silverlight desktop approach over AIR is that there is only one runtime plugin required.

At the speed Microsoft is moving forward with Silverlight, Adobe is going to have to start seriously upping their commitment to the Flash platform if they want to stay at the top of the game. Up to now, they could always give the argument of Flex being more feature-rich, and the ease of adaptation to the desktop with AIR – with both of these arguments now void, and Microsoft firmly remaining miles ahead in the developer tooling scene, Adobe’s work is cut out. They still have greater marketplace penetration with Flash player, but that lead is only going to narrow also.

You’ve got to love competition!

• Posted by Charlie Robbins