Jim Coplien's recent book, Lean Architecture: for Agile Software Development, explains how agile principles and architecture are complimentary, and how, with everyone working collaboratively, a good, lightweight architectural framework can help enable agility, rather than being a barrier to it.  With his usual iconoclastic style, Coplien dispels the myth that agile doesn't need architecture.

Professionals need networks to further their careers. But, for those of us who are geeks, it can be difficult to build connections face to face. Consultant and lifelong geek Fiona Charles shares networking tips that have worked for her.

Joe Farah writes that there are two key requirements: release management has to start prior to development and the tools and processes available for release management are equally applicable and important for everyone on the product team, not just for the release team.

Sometimes, the best answer is to rephrase the question. This was the approach that one of our biggest customers took when undertaking a new effort to improve their Release Engineering process. They first asked themselves: How can we make the process of making products faster, more reliable, and more efficient? It’s worth pausing to understand what the process is today before thinking about improving it. Whether managed by a dedicated team or not, Release Engineering is the part of a software development organization that’s responsible for actually converting the millions of lines of carefully crafted source code into a useful software product or service for the end-user. More interestingly, it must also be able to show definitively what went into a release should (when) the need to modify it arises.