Agility and Quality What is "quality"? There are many competing definitions, but the one that makes the most sense, "Quality is in the eye of the beholder," is hard to make workable in a real business situation. Some would say it is impossible to use, but Agile methods beg to differ.
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Alan S. Koch
April 12, 2006 |
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That's Not My Job When trying to complete a task, nothing is more frustrating than insufficient documentation of the process. Well, maybe the coworker who knows the process but is unwilling to help you can be just a tad more irritating. Unfortunately we run into these problems daily. People try to do more with less, which can severely stall or prevent completion of any task. In this week's column, Peter Clark recalls how he helped a coworker through similar hassles and what he did when others claimed that helping coworkers was "not their job." |
Peter Clark
April 6, 2006 |
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How to Merge XML Data with a Database In his article "Data Crunching Tips and Techniques," Greg Wilson taught us how to translate legacy data into XML. In the second half, he explains how to merge new data into an existing database. Developers will always face these types of data crunching problems, and knowing the standard data crunching tools can save you a lot of time. Greg also shares the basic knowledge about relational databases that every developer should possess. |
Greg Wilson
April 6, 2006 |
5 Keys to Automating Configuration Management for Application Infrastructure One of the trends being discussed in business, among vendors and in the analyst community is the importance of automating the functions performed by IT. Growing demands by the business, tight budgets and compliance pressures together accentuate the need for IT to be more agile, efficient and responsive to business stakeholders. |
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Introduction to Subversion This is the first of a four part series on Subversion (SVN for short). It covers Subversion history and basic overview of most important SVN features. (Part 2 will cover Subversion installation and look at the most popular clients. Part 3 will give you the guided tour of the most frequent Subversion use cases. Finally, Part 4 and will give some hints for the process of migration from other RCSs to Subversion.) |
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Software Configuration Management - Embracing the principles of 5S Configuration Management always remains as one of the key contributing factors for a successful project execution. Software Quality guru, Watts Humphrey in “Managing the Software Process” states - “The most frustrating software problems are often caused by poor configuration management .” It therefore becomes inevitable for organizations to establish and maintain good configuration management practices. |
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Assessing CM in the Development Process Is configuration management (CM) integrated into your development process? Do you have a good way to assess this? Do you have a process to improve the situation? Development without CM will eventually lead to lost code, delays in release schedules, and regression in functionality (amongst other negative impacts). The purpose of this article is to lay out a set of steps that can help assess the level of CM in the current development process (and environment), then identify ways to improve the situation. |
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Done and DONE-done As a professional project manager and amateur magician, Payson Hall assures us that effective project management isn't magic. A magician should never reveal how a magical effect is accomplished, but good managers do share the rationale behind their actions to help others become more self-sufficient. Demystifying effective management actions improves our ability to get results, allowing us to move on to new and different challenges. In this column, Payson explains the strongest management "trick" in his repertoire--the pursuit of unambiguous completion criteria. He also tells us that perfecting this trick takes a lot of practice, but it can serve us immediately and throughout our careers. |
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Creating Compelling Checklists This article discusses practical and proven ideas on how testers can make their own checklists. It evolved partly as a response to many queries regarding testing checklists on this website’s Discussion Boards. The idea of this article is to guide testers to make their own checklists. |
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Using Mocks to Verify Interactions In the March 2006 issue of Better Software magazine, Dan North began a discussion of the evolution of behavior-driven development from test-driven development. Here, North continues the conversation with closer look at "mocks," utility classes that, for testing purposes, pretend to be some component or service with which your object will interact. |
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