The crazy (8 releases in the past 30 days!) Hudson dev team has just introduced a new feature. They call it a ‘matrix project’. The idea is that a configuration would often be common to many builds. Say, one for each operating systems, times each supported JDK, times each supported database environments, etc. You could end up with dozens copies of the same Hudson configuration.
To work around this, it is now possible to specify each JDK we are targeting, plus environments variables. All combinations of parameters are then tested.
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Scott Ambler has put together a survey that shows surprisingly positive data regarding application of Agile in companies. Apparently, more than two thirds of respondents were already adopting Agile practices, and among them close to half were already on their second project, or even more. Success rates are also very high.
OK, this is no scientific data: participants had to go to Dr Dobb’s website, which probably tends to attract American developers, with at least some passing interest in their work. So certainly not too representative. Also, Mr Ambler seems a slightly controversial figure
Still, we are lacking data in the Agile world . This survey is akin to clinical trials: an encouraging result, though it does not prove definitely the effectiveness. Useful.
See Scott Ambler’s (slightly over-enthusiastic) comments on Dr Dobb’s site.
I finally completed reading Agile Estimating and Planning, the definitive book by Mike Cohn.
Though longer than many books in the Agile domain, it covers so much that it should be a mandatory reading for anyone interested in Agile. Every techniques that you hear about in books or trainings are there, detailed just enough so they can be applied right away.
If I would have to take only one thing from it, is how to draw up the initial release plan, once the functionalities are identified. The name of the game is to know your velocity. You basically have three options: re-use the velocity from a previous release (if you are conducting a new release with the same technical team); run a first iteration and re-use its velocity as basis; take a representative sample of functionalities, and get the technical team to split it in detailed tasks.
This book has been praised by many others. If you haven’t read it yet, buy it and put it to the top of your list.
Now, I’m on to my summer readings: Agile Web Development with Rails and Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, not to mention How To Be a Programmer.
Well, it took 5 long months, but I can finally honestly say that we are doing (some) Scrum things on my current project.
I joined the project in February this year. My first idea was to convince the project lead that Agile Is Good ™, but I quickly gave up, especially since he had made clear in pre-assignment talks that he was rather skeptical.
I then resolved to do whatever I could on my side. TDD, some Continuous Integration, some rare Pair Programming… all good stuff, but my heart was not into it (except for TDD).
Then, just a couple of weeks ago, I was joined by another consultant colleague who had agreed to the assignment because we would be doing Agile stuff. Finally, we did real Pair Programming, real Continuous Continuous integration, and still real TDD.
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I hope I am not the last to report this…
CNN has listed Agile has one of the most influential “people, product, trend, or idea that is transforming the world of business”. In fact, it was ranked 18th out of 50, no less (number one is the Google Dream Team).
It’s impressive that Agile is getting noticed by such a visible media.
Another proof that it is getting into people’s mind is that my current boss (originally openly against Agile methods) now says that “we’ve been agile without even knowing it”. No comments ;-)
In fact, it is well on the way to become a most overused buzzword. I expect that, within one year, at least one high profile politician will be using the A word in a public speech.
In a previous post, I mentioned the competition between Subclipse and Subversive, two Eclipse plugins that provide integration with Subversion, a Source Code Management system, to become the official Subversion plugin under Eclipse.
I’m a bit late on this, but my understanding is that Subversive won. Their page on eclipse.org shows that they have been accepted as an Eclipse project, while the page for Subclipse says that it has been withdrawn (in April this year).
This comes as a surprise. Subclipse, long the de facto standard for Eclipse-Subversion integration, not retained as the default implementation?! Only a couple of months ago, Valtech Training France chose Subclipse without much hesitating for a training on Build Process (which I teach occasionally).
Apparently, the reason is that the Subclipse team withdrawn their proposal for their own reasons. They essentially argue that they can do a better job by staying outside the Eclipse project.
Maybe, but let’s be honest: if Eclipse comes with SVN support built-in, would you go look for another plugin? Well, me neither, just like I never looked for a replacement for the provided CVS plugin.
The official Subversive-Eclipse integration is still incubating so there is still much to do. I’m hoping it will be part of the next major release of Eclipse (next year?).
See another comment on the Subversive/Subclipse story
During the last Scrum training that I gave, I put to the test Wideband Delphi, a technique for reaching a consensus on estimations.
One common exercise that I propose is to estimate my own weight. Another, not based on Wideband Delphi, is to give high and low estimates on various data, such as the temperature of the sun, or the amount of US$ cash in circulation.
In this instance, there were 18 participants, about 50% more than the recommended number. I was running out of time, so I decided to merge the two exercises into one. I simply asked to estimate one thing: the amount of water in the US great lakes.
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