In 2006 I had the opportunity to work as a “project leader” into a small failing project. Three developers were working in an ad hoc basis, creating a software application for an important client (a government office in Lausanne), without any kind of detailed formal specification, without any kind of design documentation, and with strong [...]
Saving a Failing Project
August
11,
2008
Papers · Project Management · Quality · Software
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Ceremony
August
9,
2008
A comment I’ve left in David’s last article: The ceremony? A revolting demonstration of how “One World, One Dream” means the destruction of all diversity for the sake of some governing power that be, forcing a single idea on everyone. A vomiting sequence of thousands of ants and bees moving at the compass of the [...]
Act Now · Argentina · Human Rights
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Adding Manpower
August
8,
2008
Published in 1975, “The Mythical Man-Month” is considered an all-time classic in the software engineering field. The book author, Frederick P. Brooks Jr., used his experience as the project manager of the IBM System/360 and its software, the Operating System/360, to explain a common set of problem patterns, applicable to other software projects as well. [...]
Architecture · Books · Papers · Project Management · Software
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Certification
August
5,
2008
While several other professions have a long, established and standard procedure of certification, the title “software engineer” is applied to both self-made developers, turned into experts of some technique, or to people with PhD degrees, and a long history of both academic and professional achievements. When in some situations it is not legally possible to [...]
Papers · Project Management · Quality · Software
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Challenges for Software Engineers
August
3,
2008
Software Engineering is the youngest of all the professions, being born around 50 years ago, but since then it has been continually improved. Practicers have fiercely debated upon it through the years, given the extremely fast pace of the innovations in the field, and the extremely difficult and inherently dynamic nature of software. Many trends [...]
Architecture · Opinion · Papers · Software · Technology
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Nibs
July
14,
2008
I’m sure the pun between the acronym for “NeXT Interface Builder” and this definition of “cocoa beans” is intentional, but it surprised me anyway:
Apple · Humour
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A Watch – from an OOP perspective
July
13,
2008
A watch might be one of the most common types of objects, but it remains also one of the earliest pieces of human craftmanship to show an extreme level of complexity, all contained in a small amount of space. Since the late 1700s, artisan watchmakers in Switzerland and elsewhere have shown their pride and skills [...]
Papers · Software
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iPhone at the Swiss Apple Store
July
10,
2008
Available right now:
App Store arrived!
July
10,
2008
Click on the “Applications” item in iTunes, and you’ll see this at the bottom of the screen: Clicking there, you’ll get to the App Store:
Apple · Technology
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App Store coming!
July
10,
2008
Seen in the preferences of iTunes 7.7, just released via Software Update: When enabled, it adds the following icon to iTunes: