Friday, February 25, 2011

Following a Method

It is important to have an appropriate process or method. Following a method provides a team with a common vocabulary to express complex concepts which would otherwise take a lot of time to explain. Furthermore, a method provides responsibilities (assigned to roles) so team members know what to expect from each other without spending a lot of time arguing about it. Methods provide a way to utilize experiences from others so a team can avoid spending a lot of time reinventing the wheel.


Friday, February 18, 2011

A Short History

Software development started with the arrival of the first computers in the 1960’s. Programming started to be hard-wired (fixed programming) or soft-wired (reprogramming was possible by changing the position of plugs). Later, programs could be fed to the computer. First in binary code, then assembler languages were developed (second generation) which were more readable to programmers. The next step in programming was the introduction of procedural languages (third generation) like Cobol and Basic. Although these languages were even closer to the human language and hide a lot of low level procedures and direct addressing of memory from the programmer, they were still modeled close to how a computer works, performing a number of tasks in the right order to get to the right result. But since computers were mainly concerned with heavy data processing and number crunching in those days, procedural languages worked fine.

Friday, February 4, 2011

ScrumUP Fairytale - Part 2

The Soup Stone – 2: Something odd…


There is something odd going on though, because every time he sees a little settlement it is followed by a piece of wasteland and then a little settlement again. This pattern continues for quite some time along the road he is following. There are only little paths leading from each little settlements to the main road, never from one settlement to another. As the soldier approaches a city he notices the little settlements start to be closer together and more and more settlements appear. But the pattern of pieces of wasteland between each settlement is never broken. Although the settlements are getting closer and closer together there are still no paths between them.