A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to give a virtual talk at a product launch for an SCM Tool vendor. The theme of the talk was basic branching strategies, and preparing for the talk led me to reflect on what Brad and I wrote in the SCM Patterns Book. This post is based on those thoughts.

In this lightning talk from STAREAST 2011, Dale Emery takes a look at some common issues we encounter when estimating and explains why they aren't actually estimating problems.

Should you diligently produce multiple big documents before testing begins? Consultant Fiona Charles argues that you should do that only if you believe that documentation is your product as a tester. If your product is information, you should instead minimize test documentation and engage with the software to build the product your stakeholders are paying for.

The IT industry is abuzz with conversations regarding continuous delivery, DevOps, and cloud development—and with good reason. Advances in agile software development methods, the integration of these practices into both on-premise and public clouds, and the emergence of end-to-end cloud platforms have been shown to cut development cycles by as much as half, greatly improve quality, and reduce costs. Even though this is an unbelievably exciting time, we need to work together on the issue of the “fractured cloud.”