craig
How to be Agile when using 3rd party software framework
It can be difficult to be Agile when working with 3rd party software framework. The vendor product may dictate many aspects of the software architecture thwarting your attempts at automated testing and continuous build. However there are steps you can take to make Agile easier. I’ll discuss a few of the options that have worked for [...]
ControlTier: Initial Impressions
For the last 2 months, we’ve been using ControlTier to automate deployments to our integration and QA environments. Our deployment is a little more complicated that most Java applications because it runs on a pseudo-grid. That is, there are 2 clustered JBoss servers, a database server, and 4+ Linux servers that each run about 8 [...]
Shoulder injury, 2 months later
It has now been 2 months since my shoulder injury (a grade 3 AC joint separation). I am pleased with the progress that I’ve made to date, but was expecting the pain to have subsided more than it has.
Things I Learnt in 2011
Automation is good. People make or break a project. Thanks Joel. Coding the right tests is hard, but infinitely valuable. “Cutting edge development” describes the processes and principles, not the technologies. Software must be tested in a representative environment. Knowing the gaps between marketing and reality in your vendor’s software is valuable. The timing of a [...]
Dysfunctions of a corporation
Deploying a sufficiently complicated application into a corporate environment involves navigating a sea of paperwork, getting all the appropriate “approvals” in place, co-ordinating with department managers to get time slots from their staff, and so on.