Improving the world with software
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Essays on software development, teams and the craft of building things that last.
Essays from December 2006
5 essays from December 2006
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The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) does it again…
The Software Engineering Institute gave us CMMI, but they haven’t stopped “helping” the software industry. Their report on “Documenting Software Architectures in an Agile World“(PDF alert) tries to define the difference between Agile-prone and Architecture-prone software projects. They tell us that agile requires you not to document architecture (I did not know that…), and later …
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The different values of software features, 9 different examples
A few days ago I posted an entry about the different layers of value in a software feature. Today I ran into an excellent example of the differences between a system that focuses on what I called immediate value (Mac OS X) and another that clearly focuses on what I called expert value. Take a …
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Quality is not just being “bug-free”, it is being “valuable”
The value of a software feature/product can be divided into 4 layers. When you code a feature you probably think immediately about the “technical value”, i.e. the technological improvement/innovation you are about to implement or algorithm/method. But it does not stop there. The expert user will find in it “expert value”, this is what a …
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Simple software is not simplistic software! Joel and Norman are wrong
Joel and Norman state several things regarding simplicity in their respective blog, but what they say can be summarized in a simple syllogism (pun intended): People like the products with more features All products with more features have more controls in the User Interfacea are less simple Therefore: People want products that are less simple …
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Is Apple the new “geek”?
As I type this blog entry in my new MacBook Pro, I’m thinking that Mac is the new “geek”.Apple products have become more and more attractive to those of us that have worked or played with computers since a young age. It’s no longer only for the Advertising/Design or Publishing industry. Macs are getting affordable …
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