Conscious Development

Software development philosophy and agile practises

Sami Poimala — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:26:11 +0000

On tuesday 13.2 I will be giving a presentation on agile philosophy. It will be given on http://www.nicetuesday.fi (in finnish).

Here are the slides.

Documentation is not just another phase

Sami Poimala — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:00:57 +0000

Documentation is often considered a distinct phase of software development. Very few admits enjoying documentation. It’s become the dark side of development which is most often tried to be left undone. The excuses are many, misunderstood agile software development processes being one the most recent. “We use Extreme Programming - we don’t make any documents!”

If documentation is kept as a separate phase, performed after coding, we will face similar problems as we do if testing is postponed until coding is finished:

When we run out of time, the phase in question won’t get done
The phase will be an enormous effort and unpleasant as such, we are coders after all. Documents are easier to write in smaller parts. For example, writing down what you have accomplished this day isn’t such a big deal. It’s easier to write when you still remember what you were thinking.
The task is easily given to someone else. It’s most efficient when the same person wo wrote the code, also writes the documentation.
The outcome of the phase are of no use to the previous phase: if documents are written/tests done along with coding, it will be profitable immediately. You’ll think about your code from a different point of view and you may even find a major flaw in your design!

I hear often “I’ll document the code when it’s finished”. But as often the code will get taken to production before it’s ready. And at that point there’s no documentation.

So, always document your code as you make progress!

Estimating and Planning

Sami Poimala — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 22:33:40 +0000

Christmas is wonderful time for reading. You don’t have anything more meaningful to do anyway

Mike Cohn’s Agile Estimating and Planning happened to be on top of my reading stack. What a wonderful book it is! It stroke right into my thinking about conscious development. He provided excellent advice on estimating projects, prioritizing features, planning projects, planning iterations, calculating benefits, communicating progress, scheduling etc.

Most often these things are either done hastily or not at all. But you really have to do them, and do them consciously.

Most projects contain a tremendous amount of uncertainty. This uncertainty is often not fully reflected in the schedules and deadlines that project teams create. There are times when this uncertainty is so large or significant that extra steps should be taken when estimating the duration of a project.

The bottomline is this:

You have to be able to justify any user story / project
Do the planning, make the plans visible, and change them as needed
Admit the uncertainty there is and plan for it
Make wise estimates don’t just have a guess

Highly recommended to everyone! Really, I can’t say is this book for developers or managers. It gives excellent advice for project managers and project owners on prioritizing features, on the other hand, it says a lot about estimating the size of a user story - an activity best done by a developer.

It matches my thinking: there should be no project managers, developers and customer - there should be unified teams. And this book is excellent reading for a team!

Telerik r.a.d controls Q4 2006 is out!

Sami Poimala — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 20:43:09 +0000

Telerik just released Q4 of r.a.d controls. Have a look at them!

Rebirth

Sami Poimala — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 19:48:10 +0000

Time to make a facelift. Both technical and philosophical. Before, I tried to make myself as much as possible. Also, I thought I could write about everything in the world. This just doesn’t make sense.

Why not use one of those great blog engines out there? Why not use one readymade theme that those guys - who really know how to do the job - have done? Content is more important than representation.

In this newly born blog I will write about things that are closely related to software development. My point of view will be a bit philosophical, as I’m currently quite a bit interested in different software methodologies. In addition, Telerik will get some air as I’m one of their MVPs.

Finally, why “Conscious Development”? That’s a different story.