15 January 2013
Large-scale development increasingly involves distributed teams as organizations seek to manage costs and leverage resources on a global scale. However, sharing code between distant development teams gives rise to problems that can only be addressed in part by processes and tools. You also need teams to communicate directly and build trust.
3 September 2012
Technical debt may be a great metaphor to describe the corrosive effect of quick and dirty design decisions, but it can be difficult to identify, measure and manage.
30 April 2012
Developers and architects like to build things, so their initial impulse is often to flatten the place, lay some stronger foundations and build something impressive. It can be difficult to get them excited about incremental innovation, even when this is generally the most sensible approach from both a technical and commercial perspective.
11 April 2012
Despite all the best intentions, software reuse tends to be confined to third party frameworks and tools rather than being an integral part of the development process. Are we expecting too much from software reuse and should we learn to set our sights a little lower?
29 December 2011
Everybody would agree that quality is an important part of the software development process. However, the complexity involved in delivering quality is often poorly understood and the amount of effort it requires tends to be underestimated.
3 February 2011
Estimates are, in essence, a kind of crystal ball gazing. You are making a series of educated guesses about how long something will take whilst often being hampered by imperfect understanding and squeezed by commercial pressures.
15 October 2010
Coding standards are one of those documents that managers often feel obliged to produce, so they are frequently written without any clear sense of purpose. A number of different motives can inspire coding standards - not all of them very positive.