I personally like Trello which is what is being used in Stack Exchange (makers of Stack Overflow and its ilk) http://blog.stackoverflow.com/...
We are an online company: we’ve been remote from day one and still to this day over half of the team (aside from sales) works from home. The only way to make that work is to keep the nexus of activity online: in chat rooms, Google Hangouts, Trello boards, etc. This keeps everyone on equal footing, whether you’re in the office or working from home.
The article was the one that introduced me to the tool and I am impressed by it. Though it still needs some explanation of how to use it. I suggest you look at Kanban but don't mention it as a methodology etc... just explain how to group the work and be done with it.
Ya I still use it for my running my Linux servers, it does the job. Though it required an external add on to get it to run as a Windows Service. However, I used to not upgrade until they updated the Windows Service extension to work in any newer version.
If I had to prepare a curriculum I would probably be using JavaScript with JQuery and HTML for the intro course. The advantage of the language is the capability of quickly visualizing the application running with just a quick press of the reload button.
The use of JQuery allows us to bypass using CSS to make some visual changes to the HTML.
It will take a bit more preparation to create the template code that the students have to fill out initially though.
I would recommend doing both. There are significant advantages of moving some of the development/test tools out to the cloud. However, it should only go as far as development and perhaps first stage testing which is probably what your CTO has in mind.
There's no reason why each development project has to pay for the physical space taken up by *shared* development tooling such as Jenkins, Common Git Repository, JIRA/Redmine/Trac and some database and application server that is used for functional testing.
However, a proof of concept system must be present locally even if it is a limited capacity otherwise you'd be wasting a lot of bandwidth going back and forth.
It would also help to design your application architecture so that you can theoretically run everything on a laptop (and provide a powerful laptop to do it). For the developers.
If your'e an IBM shop, you may want to look at JazzHub to manage things for you.
I was thinking how about keeping it dark, while at the same have those UV light that they have in the bowling alleys to set the mood. Perhaps some constant vibration in tune with the music to prevent any stabilization of images.
Of course if you detect a flash you should take them out right away.
Normally the important part is things work on their target environment. So whatever approach you take does not matter as long as things will work.
If I am thrown into a new project, I start to do a few things if they are not available.
a) set up git and port the source code to my local git repository. This allows me to work in a version controlled environment that does not require me to show my intermediate work and experiments. b) build it and make sure things do work. c) create a test harness even if it is just to prove the welcome page works, I can add onto it as time goes by. d) set up a coverage report to visually how the test cases flow through the app without stepping through a debugger (if you're lucky your language supports this, most of my projects are Java based so I have these tooling available)
Provide estimates. Don't say ASAP, always give a proper time, but not optimistic estimate. I tend to pad my estimates otherwise if something goes awry I would be accountable for them. I try to estimate based on a Jr. developer who is thrown into a project multiplied by two. However, if I do finish things sooner I let them know so the plans can change accordingly. If they want things sooner, still be firm and tell them that those are reasonable estimates given your analysis. They can choose to either accept them, try to allocate more resources (ideally) or kick you out (which is better than being burnt out)
Should your team grow, let other people know how you're doing things, there's no need to document every little thing, but be there to offer. Documenting everything you know will burn you out. As far as documenting things in detail go, I do make detailed install guides to get new developers up and running. However, that document ownership gets passed to the new developer for updates and refinements as things go.
I think moving people to work-from-home or just stay at the office are just too extreme. I think its better for the office to provide "mobility centers" where people who prefer to work at the office have a desk they can get and a locker/file cabinet to call their own. It allows for people to decide we need to have face to face interaction anytime that they want. I usually find it useful to do that in the beginning of a project to get to know who you are working with and develop logistics unique to the team.
Aside from Babylon 5, there isn't really much epic-ness on most shows on TV and even the movies. I get more bang for my buck just getting a PS2 and playing those RPGs (at least the good ones) for it.
A lot of anime series from Japan also have more depth than the crap they show on TV.
RUP is a methodology, but just happens to have tool support. However, you're not forced to use the tools and you're not forced to use all of it. Only richer companies can really afford to use them. For example, I still use CVS as the version control repository not ClearCase and in other projects I use JIRA not ClearQuest.
I am not sure about disagreement with XP, I said you need good team and good client. I would like to consider it on projects but like you said, real-life(tm) kicks in. I still like that ideas from it though, one of the nice parts about RUP is it is customizable and you can customize it to have concepts from XP (pair programming, test first development) integrated with it as well.
1) Extreme programming - this is good if you have a kick ass team and clients that are receptive to the idea of working with your development team. However, if you are in that situation, chances are any methodology would work anyway, since this methodology assumes best practice for everything.
2) Rational Unified Process - this is good if you can afford it. Its more adaptive to situations where your developers are not as stellar and clients are a bit more unreceptive. But the nice part is that it adapts. Note: you don't need to use the Rational tool set in order to use this methodology, but its nice to have anyway.
That's why we have code signing in-place with a lot of J2ME. Without those facilities, its like working in an unsigned applet on a web browser which allows you to do just plain networking and graphics.
If that's the way of the future, Sun wouldn't have developed Java Web Start to provide full access to the machine as long as it asks permission first.
I did use MIDP2.0 when developing, and all it had were simple forms, networking and a 2D drawing engine. From what I saw of the API it didn't have any of the contact management features I was originally looking for.
As far as security implications, we already have code signing to check for trusted sources.
As for the title, I still think it won't gain ground unless Symbian provides APIs to take advantage of the phone's capabilities, combined with Sun providing a Service Provider Interface with some common PDA features.
But then again, Swing initially was in the same sort of boat, it was meant to show portability and stuff, but not taking into consideration performance problems and general aesthetics (I still think there should be only one L&F for swing apps and that's the native OS L&F). But right now, Swing is getting pretty speedy, probably because its taking some real life developer input.
J2ME may eventually implement what real-life developers in limited devices would want. But it still has not materialized into something I can download and compile on yet.
I tried to develop some applications for my cellphone using J2ME, unfortunately when I did try to do it I found several limitations. Primarily because it does not take advantage of features provided by the device.
Although for the most part J2ME is meant to be as portable for as many devices as possible, it would've been nice to provide facilities to manipulate common PDA features such as: address book, calendar and todo list. I was surprised I couldn't even touch those when I was doing MIDP development before.
J2ME is more about connectivity to remote systems which may be good for business applications, its also very expensive to deploy because of the costs of cell phone air time. Still its not too bad.
With J2ME and all the drawing facilities, another common application type you can build with this are games. I've seen a few java based games and they're not too too bad.
I think it would gain ground if Symbian releases a library that provides direct access to its core facilities such as changing the screen saver, the background images, and replacing the application menu. Mind you there are applications that do these already, though you have to pay for it for something so simple, although setting up the C development environment for Symbian is difficult too.
This is why I vote for a different party other than the popular ones. I voted for the Green party here in Canada, I don't know about the US though, I am not sure if Nader is a good person to have run the country since I haven't done any research on US political parties.
But how would you get people to change from the norm in US case (Republican vs Democrat) or in Canada (NDP, Liberal, Conservative). In my opinion they are all bad, since they haven't made any move to bring the needs of common people first. I am not talking about the poor people under the proverty line, I am talking about the average joe middle class person.
Its like most of the highschool teachers we have here. During parent teacher conferences they only a lot to talk about the smartest kids or the most difficult kids, the rest who are average are just "yah they do well blah blah blah"
I don't vote for those big parties since I know they screwed us before. Why would I vote for them again (if I ever voted for them which I never did).
Also media has put forth a message saying that voting for the independents is a wasted vote or a vote for the other party. You know what? Its not a wasted vote. And personally, I would have more respect for a person that voted independent rather than the major parties (even if it is the Marjuana party or the communist party) because they actually know what they would want and know how to learn from the past.
I think I saw it posted somewhere...
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result"
I run eclipse on 1.5, I don't see why you can't build using 1.5. The only thing is if you do, no one can run your plugins outside of 1.5 since the generated class files can only be compatible with 1.5 VMs.
I've met quite a few people in I/T shops in the US and even though the overworked worker does not become too efficient, you're still only paying for one worker and the standard rate since they generally do not get overtime pay.
Also the maintenance of an additional worker would eat through the efficiency of having only one person who works to the bone in fear of losing his job.
Once the person's worn out we can easily kick him out for saying that he is not efficient in his work and not too productive.
Actually its more like being in Toronto, it does not affect me as of yet.:D (j/k) The good news is that there are provisions being made now to rectify the situation.
The way I voice my opinion on this is by voting for the Greenparty of Canada. Hopefully they'd win one day and get rid of these highly commercialized parties.
Its true that outsourcing does save money, but you are putting your data at risk when bringing it outside your country. Even if the other country would have compatible laws on privacy as yours, it does not mean they cannot change them at whim (e.g. the Patriot Act by Bush's government). Governments should keep their records secure within its borders, any outsourcing of such data is inviting a breach of trust against the public. Private companies who outsource their data should have the right to be sued by the public (we may already have that) if their private information is not held properly, I know we have laws saying that corporate data on people should not be shared outside the corporation without written consent by the party involved.
If I had the power (i.e., prime minister, mayor, etc), I would ban outsourcing of work done by government agencies which involves private data or tools that manipulate such data. I include manipulation (which includes application development and transcriptions) because other countries might not have laws or standards to maintain the same level that we require as a minimum by our standards. And even if they did, like the Patriot Act, it can change at whim.
I would probably still outsource some of the reference data and tools such as postal code database maintenance, lists of parks and maps of Canada to other countries since its public information that won't affect anyone directly, though it still needs to be QAed over here. That would at least reduce our costs and menial tasks so we can work on more important things like enjoying life and having fun.
I use Maxthon (used to be MyIE2) and I like its popup blocker and tab browser support. Plus since its just a shell over Internet Explorer, existing sites are not affected (much).
That's a good solution. But it would mean that inventors can be bought out at whim so if one company invests the time and money for the research and the inventor decides to switch to a different company with a cooshy retirement job that's a big risk that a company would be taking. How'd you justify the risk for companies to pay for such people?
Also by denying inventions to competitors, you'd create monopolies where it will do more harm to the people than good since one company will own the only source and can demand any price they want.
Another situation that might arise is an invention deadlock. One person might have an idea for the product and another person might have an idea on how to produce a key portion the product and if they're locked by companies then nothing will get built until one of them dies.
Also would an inventor in a coma under cryostatis be considered alive hence keeping the patent running?
You're right it isn't fully thought out, but its just an idea. And I wanted a sort of forum for discussion so I can flesh the thought out. Don't worry I'm not insulted, I'm glad to see all points of view.
Personally, I am thinking that my compensation is recognition instead of money.
Identical knockoffs is one thing, but preventing extensions is another. Also worse, preventing others from innovating (see my example of a gas company owning a core patent for electric cars).
Also regarding the less motivated, would you want someone less motivated to create the next cancer drug? Or even worse, get motivated by money alone and not how the drug works and hide research results that would make the product look bad in people's eyes?
Patents are good but you are assuming that everyone is altruistic in their intent. In the early days when manufacturing is prominent, I think patents protected some rights (I'm not sure how, maybe because at that time there were many more people who are poor and can't even afford shelter during the great depression, or perhaps the patent haves and havenots caused it, that's another thought line).
I'm not sacrificing any inventions, they may just not come out as fast (initially). Things will get invented one way or another. As people get more educated (because there are no restrictions on understanding how things work and extending it) they may get more ideas to generate a better.
BTW. I'm not a big fan of RMS, but he has some ideas which are good (and some militant stuff that are bad).
As for Gene Rodenbery's Star Trek universe. I think its good to have an ideal like that.
You don't need rich people to be self-actualized (it may help). I wonder if a lot of people who do open source software are considered rich. I won't consider myself rich monetarily by any means, but I try to write opensource software (emphasis on try, because I just have ideas, but hard to write everything out).
Would Mark, John, Peter be considered rich when they wrote the bible for all people? (Not sure maybe they are, the Roman Catholic Church is one of the richer religions out there).
Slashdot Mirror
I personally like Trello which is what is being used in Stack Exchange (makers of Stack Overflow and its ilk) http://blog.stackoverflow.com/...
We are an online company: we’ve been remote from day one and still to this day over half of the team (aside from sales) works from home. The only way to make that work is to keep the nexus of activity online: in chat rooms, Google Hangouts, Trello boards, etc. This keeps everyone on equal footing, whether you’re in the office or working from home.
The article was the one that introduced me to the tool and I am impressed by it. Though it still needs some explanation of how to use it. I suggest you look at Kanban but don't mention it as a methodology etc... just explain how to group the work and be done with it.
Ya I still use it for my running my Linux servers, it does the job. Though it required an external add on to get it to run as a Windows Service. However, I used to not upgrade until they updated the Windows Service extension to work in any newer version.
If I had to prepare a curriculum I would probably be using JavaScript with JQuery and HTML for the intro course. The advantage of the language is the capability of quickly visualizing the application running with just a quick press of the reload button.
The use of JQuery allows us to bypass using CSS to make some visual changes to the HTML.
It will take a bit more preparation to create the template code that the students have to fill out initially though.
I would recommend doing both. There are significant advantages of moving some of the development/test tools out to the cloud. However, it should only go as far as development and perhaps first stage testing which is probably what your CTO has in mind.
There's no reason why each development project has to pay for the physical space taken up by *shared* development tooling such as Jenkins, Common Git Repository, JIRA/Redmine/Trac and some database and application server that is used for functional testing.
However, a proof of concept system must be present locally even if it is a limited capacity otherwise you'd be wasting a lot of bandwidth going back and forth.
It would also help to design your application architecture so that you can theoretically run everything on a laptop (and provide a powerful laptop to do it). For the developers.
If your'e an IBM shop, you may want to look at JazzHub to manage things for you.
I was thinking how about keeping it dark, while at the same have those UV light that they have in the bowling alleys to set the mood. Perhaps some constant vibration in tune with the music to prevent any stabilization of images.
Of course if you detect a flash you should take them out right away.
Normally the important part is things work on their target environment. So whatever approach you take does not matter as long as things will work.
If I am thrown into a new project, I start to do a few things if they are not available.
a) set up git and port the source code to my local git repository. This allows me to work in a version controlled environment that does not require me to show my intermediate work and experiments.
b) build it and make sure things do work.
c) create a test harness even if it is just to prove the welcome page works, I can add onto it as time goes by.
d) set up a coverage report to visually how the test cases flow through the app without stepping through a debugger (if you're lucky your language supports this, most of my projects are Java based so I have these tooling available)
Provide estimates. Don't say ASAP, always give a proper time, but not optimistic estimate. I tend to pad my estimates otherwise if something goes awry I would be accountable for them. I try to estimate based on a Jr. developer who is thrown into a project multiplied by two. However, if I do finish things sooner I let them know so the plans can change accordingly. If they want things sooner, still be firm and tell them that those are reasonable estimates given your analysis. They can choose to either accept them, try to allocate more resources (ideally) or kick you out (which is better than being burnt out)
Should your team grow, let other people know how you're doing things, there's no need to document every little thing, but be there to offer. Documenting everything you know will burn you out. As far as documenting things in detail go, I do make detailed install guides to get new developers up and running. However, that document ownership gets passed to the new developer for updates and refinements as things go.
JIRA may not be open source, but it is still significantly cheaper than some of the commercial products out there.
I think moving people to work-from-home or just stay at the office are just too extreme. I think its better for the office to provide "mobility centers" where people who prefer to work at the office have a desk they can get and a locker/file cabinet to call their own. It allows for people to decide we need to have face to face interaction anytime that they want. I usually find it useful to do that in the beginning of a project to get to know who you are working with and develop logistics unique to the team.
Aside from Babylon 5, there isn't really much epic-ness on most shows on TV and even the movies. I get more bang for my buck just getting a PS2 and playing those RPGs (at least the good ones) for it.
A lot of anime series from Japan also have more depth than the crap they show on TV.
RUP is a methodology, but just happens to have tool support. However, you're not forced to use the tools and you're not forced to use all of it. Only richer companies can really afford to use them. For example, I still use CVS as the version control repository not ClearCase and in other projects I use JIRA not ClearQuest.
I am not sure about disagreement with XP, I said you need good team and good client. I would like to consider it on projects but like you said, real-life(tm) kicks in. I still like that ideas from it though, one of the nice parts about RUP is it is customizable and you can customize it to have concepts from XP (pair programming, test first development) integrated with it as well.
There are two methodologies I like.
1) Extreme programming - this is good if you have a kick ass team and clients that are receptive to the idea of working with your development team. However, if you are in that situation, chances are any methodology would work anyway, since this methodology assumes best practice for everything.
2) Rational Unified Process - this is good if you can afford it. Its more adaptive to situations where your developers are not as stellar and clients are a bit more unreceptive. But the nice part is that it adapts. Note: you don't need to use the Rational tool set in order to use this methodology, but its nice to have anyway.
That's why we have code signing in-place with a lot of J2ME. Without those facilities, its like working in an unsigned applet on a web browser which allows you to do just plain networking and graphics.
If that's the way of the future, Sun wouldn't have developed Java Web Start to provide full access to the machine as long as it asks permission first.
I did use MIDP2.0 when developing, and all it had were simple forms, networking and a 2D drawing engine. From what I saw of the API it didn't have any of the contact management features I was originally looking for.
As far as security implications, we already have code signing to check for trusted sources.
As for the title, I still think it won't gain ground unless Symbian provides APIs to take advantage of the phone's capabilities, combined with Sun providing a Service Provider Interface with some common PDA features.
But then again, Swing initially was in the same sort of boat, it was meant to show portability and stuff, but not taking into consideration performance problems and general aesthetics (I still think there should be only one L&F for swing apps and that's the native OS L&F). But right now, Swing is getting pretty speedy, probably because its taking some real life developer input.
J2ME may eventually implement what real-life developers in limited devices would want. But it still has not materialized into something I can download and compile on yet.
I tried to develop some applications for my cellphone using J2ME, unfortunately when I did try to do it I found several limitations. Primarily because it does not take advantage of features provided by the device.
Although for the most part J2ME is meant to be as portable for as many devices as possible, it would've been nice to provide facilities to manipulate common PDA features such as: address book, calendar and todo list. I was surprised I couldn't even touch those when I was doing MIDP development before.
J2ME is more about connectivity to remote systems which may be good for business applications, its also very expensive to deploy because of the costs of cell phone air time. Still its not too bad.
With J2ME and all the drawing facilities, another common application type you can build with this are games. I've seen a few java based games and they're not too too bad.
I think it would gain ground if Symbian releases a library that provides direct access to its core facilities such as changing the screen saver, the background images, and replacing the application menu. Mind you there are applications that do these already, though you have to pay for it for something so simple, although setting up the C development environment for Symbian is difficult too.
This is why I vote for a different party other than the popular ones. I voted for the Green party here in Canada, I don't know about the US though, I am not sure if Nader is a good person to have run the country since I haven't done any research on US political parties.
But how would you get people to change from the norm in US case (Republican vs Democrat) or in Canada (NDP, Liberal, Conservative). In my opinion they are all bad, since they haven't made any move to bring the needs of common people first. I am not talking about the poor people under the proverty line, I am talking about the average joe middle class person.
Its like most of the highschool teachers we have here. During parent teacher conferences they only a lot to talk about the smartest kids or the most difficult kids, the rest who are average are just "yah they do well blah blah blah"
I don't vote for those big parties since I know they screwed us before. Why would I vote for them again (if I ever voted for them which I never did).
Also media has put forth a message saying that voting for the independents is a wasted vote or a vote for the other party. You know what? Its not a wasted vote. And personally, I would have more respect for a person that voted independent rather than the major parties (even if it is the Marjuana party or the communist party) because they actually know what they would want and know how to learn from the past.
I think I saw it posted somewhere...
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result"
I run eclipse on 1.5, I don't see why you can't build using 1.5. The only thing is if you do, no one can run your plugins outside of 1.5 since the generated class files can only be compatible with 1.5 VMs.
The Eclipse 3.1 betas support 1.5 constructs. I normally use the integration builds.
I've met quite a few people in I/T shops in the US and even though the overworked worker does not become too efficient, you're still only paying for one worker and the standard rate since they generally do not get overtime pay.
Also the maintenance of an additional worker would eat through the efficiency of having only one person who works to the bone in fear of losing his job.
Once the person's worn out we can easily kick him out for saying that he is not efficient in his work and not too productive.
Actually its more like being in Toronto, it does not affect me as of yet. :D (j/k) The good news is that there are provisions being made now to rectify the situation.
The way I voice my opinion on this is by voting for the Greenparty of Canada. Hopefully they'd win one day and get rid of these highly commercialized parties.
I have updated my blog to reflect your comments. Thx.
Yup, but then I have to support clients that use that browser so might as well make the best of it :D
I use Maxthon (used to be MyIE2) and I like its popup blocker and tab browser support. Plus since its just a shell over Internet Explorer, existing sites are not affected (much).
That's a good solution. But it would mean that inventors can be bought out at whim so if one company invests the time and money for the research and the inventor decides to switch to a different company with a cooshy retirement job that's a big risk that a company would be taking. How'd you justify the risk for companies to pay for such people?
Also by denying inventions to competitors, you'd create monopolies where it will do more harm to the people than good since one company will own the only source and can demand any price they want.
Another situation that might arise is an invention deadlock. One person might have an idea for the product and another person might have an idea on how to produce a key portion the product and if they're locked by companies then nothing will get built until one of them dies.
Also would an inventor in a coma under cryostatis be considered alive hence keeping the patent running?
You're right it isn't fully thought out, but its just an idea. And I wanted a sort of forum for discussion so I can flesh the thought out. Don't worry I'm not insulted, I'm glad to see all points of view.
Personally, I am thinking that my compensation is recognition instead of money.
Identical knockoffs is one thing, but preventing extensions is another. Also worse, preventing others from innovating (see my example of a gas company owning a core patent for electric cars).
Also regarding the less motivated, would you want someone less motivated to create the next cancer drug? Or even worse, get motivated by money alone and not how the drug works and hide research results that would make the product look bad in people's eyes?
Patents are good but you are assuming that everyone is altruistic in their intent. In the early days when manufacturing is prominent, I think patents protected some rights (I'm not sure how, maybe because at that time there were many more people who are poor and can't even afford shelter during the great depression, or perhaps the patent haves and havenots caused it, that's another thought line).
I'm not sacrificing any inventions, they may just not come out as fast (initially). Things will get invented one way or another. As people get more educated (because there are no restrictions on understanding how things work and extending it) they may get more ideas to generate a better.
BTW. I'm not a big fan of RMS, but he has some ideas which are good (and some militant stuff that are bad).
As for Gene Rodenbery's Star Trek universe. I think its good to have an ideal like that.
You don't need rich people to be self-actualized (it may help). I wonder if a lot of people who do open source software are considered rich. I won't consider myself rich monetarily by any means, but I try to write opensource software (emphasis on try, because I just have ideas, but hard to write everything out).
Would Mark, John, Peter be considered rich when they wrote the bible for all people? (Not sure maybe they are, the Roman Catholic Church is one of the richer religions out there).
Anyway, those are my 2c.