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• Application Architect vs. Systems Architect vs. Enterprise Architect?

  - by iaman00b

  So many buzzwords. Not sure if I need to start playing BS Bingo or not. And I'm not trying to be cynical. But I've heard many people with these various titles. There never seems to be a clear delineation between the three. Or there's a lot of domain crossover between the three. Actually, another I've seen while looking around here on Stackoverflow has been "Solutions Architect" as well. But that one doesn't seem to be so prevalent in other places. There are questions here and there with vague answers. But I'd like definative answers to this. Please assume I'm still relatively new to software stuff and that I'm trying to map out a career path. Oh, and please be gentle folks; this most definitely is not a duplicate question. Neither is it an aggregate. So kindly leave it alone. Xp

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• Bash PATH: How long is too long?

  - by ajwood

  Hi, I'm currently designing a software quarantine pattern to use on Ubuntu. I'm not sure how standard "quarantine" is in this context, so here is what I hope to accomplish... Inside a particular quarantine is all of the stuff one needs to run an application (bin, share, lib, etc.). Ideally, the quarantine has no leaks, which means it's not relying on any code outside of itself on the system. A quarantine can be defined as a set of executables (and some environment settings needed to make them run). I think it will be beneficial to separate the built packages enough such that upgrading to a newer version of the quarantine won't require rebuilding the whole thing. I'll be able to update just a few packages, and then the new quarantine can use some of old parts and some of the new parts. One issue I'm wondering about is the environment variables I'll be setting up to use a particular quarantines. Is there a hard limit on how big PATH can be? (either in number of characters, or in the number of directories it contains) Might a path be so long that it affects performance? Thanks very much, Andrew p.s. Any other wisdom that might help my design would be greatly appreciated :)

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• PC to Macbook Pro Transition - Getting (re)started?

  - by Torus Linvald

  I'm in my second computer science course right now. I've enjoyed programming so far, but really have just scraped my way by. I've not done much programming outside of required class work. For similar reasons, I never really invested in downloading/learning software to help me program (IDE's, editors, compilers, etc). I know it sounds tedious, but my current setup is: notepad++ for coding; Filezilla to transfer .cpp & .h files to school's aludra/unix and compiling; unix tells me where my bugs are and I go back to notepad++ to debug; repeat until done. This isn't fun - and I know it could be easier. But I put it off knowing that I was soon going to switch to a Mac. And, tomorrow, I'm switching. So... How should I set up my Macbook for the best programming experience? What IDEs and editors and debuggers and so on should I download? How will Mac programming differ from PC? I'm open to all ideas and comments, even the most basic. (Background - I'm learning/programming in C++ right now. Next semester, my classes switch to Java. I'm also going to take a class in web development, with HTML/CSS/Javascript/PHP. My new laptop will be a late 2009 Macbook Pro with Leopard, or maybe Snow Leopard. Free would be preferrable for all programs.) Thank you all.

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• Problems with Update Manager

  - by user65965

  Whenever I try to update with update manager I get the following errors: W:Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release Unable to find expected entry 'commercial/source/Sources' in Release file (Wrong sources.list entry or malformed file) W:Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/Release Unable to find expected entry 'commercial/source/Sources' in Release file (Wrong sources.list entry or malformed file) W:Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/Release Unable to find expected entry 'commercial/source/Sources' in Release file (Wrong sources.list entry or malformed file) W:Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/Release Unable to find expected entry 'commercial/source/Sources' in Release file (Wrong sources.list entry or malformed file) W:Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/iefremov/ppa/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/source/Sources 404 Not Found W:Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/iefremov/ppa/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/binary-amd64/Packages 404 Not Found W:Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/iefremov/ppa/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/binary-i386/Packages 404 Not Found E:Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead. Any help would be much appreciated, thank you. Thank you very much Eliah. I'm still pretty new to Ubuntu. Here's the output I got from the terminal: No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Release: 12.04 Codename: precise # See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to # newer versions of the distribution. deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main restricted commercial deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise restricted main commercial multiverse universe #Added by software-properties ## Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the ## distribution. deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-updates main restricted commercial deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-updates restricted main commercial multiverse universe #Added by software-properties ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team. Also, please note that software in universe WILL NOT receive any ## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team. deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise universe deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-updates universe ## N.B. software from this repository is ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu ## team, and may not be under a free licence. Please satisfy yourself as to ## your rights to use the software. Also, please note that software in ## multiverse WILL NOT receive any review or updates from the Ubuntu ## security team. deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise multiverse deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-updates multiverse ## N.B. software from this repository may not have been tested as ## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes ## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features. ## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review ## or updates from the Ubuntu security team. deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-backports main restricted universe multiverse commercial deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-backports main restricted universe multiverse commercial #Added by software-properties deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security main restricted commercial deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security restricted main commercial multiverse universe #Added by software-properties deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security universe deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-security multiverse ## Uncomment the following two lines to add software from Canonical's ## 'partner' repository. ## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by Canonical and the ## respective vendors as a service to Ubuntu users. deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu oneiric partner deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner ## This software is not part of Ubuntu, but is offered by third-party ## developers who want to ship their latest software. deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise main ## This is a 3rd party script to install and update Oracle Java deb http://www.duinsoft.nl/pkg debs all ## Sun-Java6-JRE deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security main multiverse ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/askubuntu-tools-ppa-precise.list: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/askubuntu-tools/ppa/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/askubuntu-tools/ppa/ubuntu precise main ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/askubuntu-tools-ppa-precise.list.save: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/askubuntu-tools/ppa/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/askubuntu-tools/ppa/ubuntu precise main ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/effie-jayx-turpial-oneiric.list: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/effie-jayx/turpial/ubuntu precise main # disabled on upgrade to precise deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/effie-jayx/turpial/ubuntu precise main # disabled on upgrade to precise ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/effie-jayx-turpial-oneiric.list.distUpgrade: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/effie-jayx/turpial/ubuntu oneiric main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/effie-jayx/turpial/ubuntu oneiric main ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/effie-jayx-turpial-oneiric.list.save: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/effie-jayx/turpial/ubuntu precise main # disabled on upgrade to precise deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/effie-jayx/turpial/ubuntu precise main # disabled on upgrade to precise ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/getdeb.list: # deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu oneiric-getdeb apps # disabled on upgrade to precise ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/getdeb.list.distUpgrade: deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu oneiric-getdeb apps ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/getdeb.list.save: # deb http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu oneiric-getdeb apps # disabled on upgrade to precise ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hotot-team-ppa-oneiric.list: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/hotot-team/ppa/ubuntu precise main # disabled on upgrade to precise deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/hotot-team/ppa/ubuntu precise main # disabled on upgrade to precise ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hotot-team-ppa-oneiric.list.distUpgrade: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/hotot-team/ppa/ubuntu oneiric main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/hotot-team/ppa/ubuntu oneiric main ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/hotot-team-ppa-oneiric.list.save: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/hotot-team/ppa/ubuntu precise main # disabled on upgrade to precise deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/hotot-team/ppa/ubuntu precise main # disabled on upgrade to precise ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/iefremov-ppa-precise.list: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/iefremov/ppa/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/iefremov/ppa/ubuntu precise main ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/iefremov-ppa-precise.list.save: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/iefremov/ppa/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/iefremov/ppa/ubuntu precise main ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jockey.list: deb http://www.openprinting.org/download/printdriver/debian/ lsb3.2 main-nonfree # disabled on upgrade to precise ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jockey.list.distUpgrade: deb http://www.openprinting.org/download/printdriver/debian/ lsb3.2 main-nonfree ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jockey.list.save: deb http://www.openprinting.org/download/printdriver/debian/ lsb3.2 main-nonfree # disabled on upgrade to precise ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/plexydesk-plexydesk-dailybuild-precise.list: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/plexydesk/plexydesk-dailybuild/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/plexydesk/plexydesk-dailybuild/ubuntu precise main ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/plexydesk-plexydesk-dailybuild-precise.list.save: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/plexydesk/plexydesk-dailybuild/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/plexydesk/plexydesk-dailybuild/ubuntu precise main ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/precise-partner.list: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner #Added by software-center ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/precise-partner.list.save: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu precise partner #Added by software-center ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/private-ppa.launchpad.net_commercial-ppa-uploaders_crossover-pro_ubuntu.list: # deb https://justin-dormandy:[email protected]/commercial-ppa-uploaders/crossover-pro/ubuntu precise main #Added by software-center disabled on upgrade to precise ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/private-ppa.launchpad.net_commercial-ppa-uploaders_crossover-pro_ubuntu.list.distUpgrade: cat: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/private-ppa.launchpad.net_commercial-ppa-uploaders_crossover-pro_ubuntu.list.distUpgrade: Permission denied ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/private-ppa.launchpad.net_commercial-ppa-uploaders_crossover-pro_ubuntu.list.save: cat: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/private-ppa.launchpad.net_commercial-ppa-uploaders_crossover-pro_ubuntu.list.save: Permission denied ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/screenlets-ppa-precise.list: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/screenlets/ppa/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/screenlets/ppa/ubuntu precise main ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/screenlets-ppa-precise.list.save: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/screenlets/ppa/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/screenlets/ppa/ubuntu precise main ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/webupd8team-java-precise.list: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/java/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/java/ubuntu precise main ** /etc/apt/sources.list.d/webupd8team-java-precise.list.save: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/java/ubuntu precise main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/webupd8team/java/ubuntu precise main

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• Introducing Ben Barreth, Community Builder &amp; Software Developer at GWB

  - by Staff of Geeks

  Please extend a warm welcome to Ben Barreth as the new community builder and full-time software developer at Geeks With Blogs. We've been wanting to add some cool features to the site but haven't had the opportunity until now. Adding Ben to the team should give us a big kick in the right direction. Ben has several years of .Net development experience and is heavily involved in the startup community in Kansas City, including the KC Startup Village as well as his own startup initiatives: Homes for Hackers and FreeIdeas.co. He loves working with people even more than coding and is excited to serve the GWB community in any way possible. Ben originally met Matt Watson as a beta tester for Stackify, the software company that gives developers the safe & secure access to troubleshoot in production. Jeff Julian and Matt are old friends and recently decided the site needed new ownership to carry it forward and build the enhancements it deserves. The site management transferred in October and Matt quickly began looking for a full-time community builder to lead the charge. Ben bumped into Matt once again at a Tech Cocktail event at the Boulevard Brewery where Stackify was presenting and an alliance was forged. Yes, the beer really IS that good! Which brings us to the biggest question of all: Where do you want Geeks with Blogs to go next? As a contributor to the GWB community, now is your chance to be heard! What are we missing? Features on our radar: New templates Add a code "formatter" to posts Add categories to blog feeds Re-skin the site and redesign the logo Feel free to contact Ben with further questions and ideas below. We need your help! @BenBarreth [email protected] Cell: 816-332-9770 www.linkedin.com/in/benbarreth

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• What Is A Software Architect&rsquo;s Job Today?

  - by Tim Murphy

  Originally posted on: http://geekswithblogs.net/tmurphy/archive/2013/10/25/what-is-a-software-architectrsquos-job-today.aspx It was 2001 when a project manager first put my job title as architect on a statement of work.  A lot has changed over the last twelve years.  The concepts around what an architect is has evolved.  In the early days I would have said that they just rebranded the role of the system analyst.  Now we have a multitude of architect titles: application, solution, IT, data, enterprise.  Whatever the title the goals are the same.  An architect takes the business needs and maps them to the solutions that are needed and at the same time works to ensure the quality of the solution and its maintainability. One of the problems I see these days is that we are expecting every developer to have architect skills.  That in itself is not a problem.  This reduces the need for dedicated architects.  Not every developer though is going to be able to step up to this level.  Some are just good at solving small problems instead of thinking in the larger abstract. Another problem is the accelerating speed and breadth of new technologies and products.  For an architect to be good at his job he needs to spend large amounts of personal time studying just to stay relevant. In the end I don’t think the main objectives of an architect has changed, just the level of commitment needed to stay of value to your company.  Renew your commitment to your profession and keep delivering great solutions. Technorati Tags: software architect,enterprise architect,data architect,solution architect,IT architect,PSC,PSC Group

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• Unique Business Value vs. Unique IT

  - by barry.perkins

  When the age of computing started, technology was new, exciting, full of potential and had a long way to grow. Vendor architectures were proprietary, and limited in function at first, growing in capability and complexity over time. There were few if any "standards", let alone "open standards" and the concepts of "open systems", and "open architectures" were far in the future. Companies employed intelligent, talented and creative people to implement the best possible solutions for their company. At first, those solutions were "unique" to each company. As time progressed, standards emerged, companies shared knowledge, business capability supplied by technology grew, and companies continued to expand their use of technology. Taking advantage of change required companies to struggle through periodic "revolutionary" change cycles, struggling through costly changes that were fraught with risk, resulted in solutions with an increasingly shorter half-life, and frequently required altering existing business processes and retraining employees and partner businesses. The pace of technological invention and implementation grew at an ever increasing rate, making the "revolutionary" approach based upon "proprietary" or "closed" architectures or technologies no longer viable. Concurrent with the advancement of technology, the rate of change in business increased, leading us to the incredibly fast paced, highly charged, and competitive global economy that we have today, where the most successful companies are companies that are good at implementing, leveraging and exploiting change. Fast forward to today, a world where dramatic changes in business and technology happen continually, a world where "evolutionary" change is crucial. Companies can no longer afford to build "unique IT", nor can they afford regular intervals of "revolutionary" change, with the associated costs and risks. Human ingenuity was once again up to the task, turning technology into a platform supporting business through evolutionary change, by employing "open": open standards; open systems; open architectures; and open solutions. Employing "open", enables companies to implement systems based upon technology, capability and standards that will evolve over time, providing a solid platform upon which a company can drive business needs, requirements, functions, and processes down into the technology, rather than exposing technology to the business, allowing companies to focus on providing "unique business value" rather than "unique IT". The big question! Does moving from "older" technology that no longer meets the needs of today's business, to new "open" technology require yet another "revolutionary change"? A "revolutionary" change with a short half-life, camouflaging reality with great marketing? The answer is "perhaps". With the endless options available to choose from, it is entirely possible to implement a solution that may work well today, but in 5 years time will become yet another albatross for the company to bear. Some solutions may look good today, solving a budget challenge by reducing cost, or solving a specific tactical challenge, but result in highly complex environments, that may be difficult to manage and maintain and limit the future potential of your business. Put differently, some solutions might push today's challenge into the future, resulting in a more complex and expensive solution. There is no such thing as a "1 size fits all" IT solution for business. If all companies implemented business solutions based upon technology that required, or forced the same business processes across all businesses in an industry, it would be extremely difficult to show competitive advantage through "unique business value". It would be equally difficult to "evolve" to meet or exceed business needs and keep up with today's rapid pace of change. How does one ensure that they do not jump from one trap directly into another? Or to put it positively, there are solutions available today that can address these challenges and issues. How does one ensure that the buying decision of today will serve the business well for years into the future? Intelligent & Informed decisions - "buying right" In a previous blog entry, we discussed the value of linking tactical to strategic The key is driving the focus to what is best for your business, handling today's tactical issues while also aligning with a roadmap/strategy that is tightly aligned with your strategic business objectives. When considering the plethora of possible options that provide various approaches to solving today's complex business problems, it is extremely important to ensure that vendors supplying those options, focus on what is best for your business, supplying sufficient information, providing adequate answers to questions, addressing challenges, issues, concerns and objections honestly and openly, and focus on supplying solutions that are tailored for, and deliver the most business value possible for your business. Here are a few questions to consider relative to the proposed options that should help ensure that today's solution doesn't become tomorrow's problem. Do the proposed solutions: Solve the problem(s) you are trying to address? Provide a solid foundation upon which to grow/enhance your business? Provide tactical gains that align with and enable your strategic business goals/objectives? Provide an infrastructure that can be leveraged with subsequent projects? Solve problems for the business overall, the lines of business, or just IT? Simplify your current environment Provide the basis for business: Efficiency Agility Clarity governance, risk, compliance real time business visibility and trend analysis Does your IT staff have the knowledge/experience to successfully manage the proposed systems once they are deployed in production? Done well, you will be presented with options tailored to your business, that enable you to drive the "unique business value" necessary to help your business stand out from others, creating a distinct competitive advantage, delivering what your customers need, when they need it, so you can attract new customers, new business, and grow top line revenue, all at a cost that provides a strong Return on Investment/Return on Assets. The net result is growth with managed cost providing significantly improved profit margin and shareholder value.

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• What principles does your software engineering or development organization follow?

  - by user11347

  What principles does your software engineering or development organization follow? I am very interested in seeing a list of principles from someone who works at a company where these principles are discussed, published, followed, etc. The closest I have seen to a principles-based engineering organization are companies which are agile and follow the agile principles. Here is a list of Marick's values/challenges: http://www.agilejourneyman.com/2010/02/4-challenges-and-5-guiding-values-of.html I am looking for pointers to more stuff like this. Ideally, I'd like to hear from people who have actually implemented a principles-based approach in their organization.

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• Are there good resources for leading documentation for an existing software product having none?

  - by Ben Rose

  Hello. I'm a software developer at a technology company. I have been tasked with leading the documentation effort for the product I work on, both internal to developers as well as spilling over into facilitating the business side of requirements documentation. This internal product has been around for at least 6 years. One challenge is that this software application has no form of documentation other than some small, outdated pieces here and there. There are comments in the code, but they are technical and do not convey any over-arching behavior (even on technical side). As a consequence of having little to no documentation, this product is often unnecessarily complex under the covers adding to the challenge. We are very limited on time that will be given to us to work on documentation. Another thing about me is that I've displayed some ability in writing/communication around the office, but I'm not coming from any sort of documentation or formal writing background (beyond my academic career). Please share your advise or recommend resources, book/website/forum/whatever, for helping me come up with a plan with milestones, best practices, task delegation, templates, buy-in, etc. I'm hoping for a resource targeting or giving special mention of introducing good documentation on existing projects where there previously was none. I would be very grateful for your responses. Ben

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• How do you manage the testing of your Android software on physical devices?

  - by Philip Regan

  I'm in charge of managing mobile application development at my company, and I am currently building a mobile device "library" for testing. Essentially, we want to have a representative device in-house for each of the OSes we are developing for, currently iOS (iPhone-only), Blackberry, and Android. Simulators only go so far, but I'm placing into the process a step to test software on the devices themselves. The problem we're finding is with Android. I don't think any of us here ever really understood just how fragmented the whole platform is until we started looking at devices to acquire. We are going to wait until v2.3 of Android is released, but which products to choose? Do we go by the most popular by market share? Do we get a small range of products by specs from least to most powerful overall? We're trying to avoid having to manage a dozen different devices to test each app, if not because of cost if only for the repeated time sink. How do you manage the testing of your Android software on physical devices?

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• Is there value in having technical authors in a software team?

  - by Desolate Planet

  During my 5 years in IT as a software developer, I've noticed that developers have a strong distaste towards doing any documentation. The act of taking screenshots and creating documentation seems to be a painful and time consuming experience. In one company I worked for, we had a technical documentation team with two technical authors and they developed all the user guides for our customers. In other companies where I've suggested hiring a technical author, I've been told they are not worth the money, but I'm a little unsure if that rings true. Is it better to have developers stop coding and take half a day to do screenshots and create the various guides or is it worth hiring someone who handles such tasks?

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• Emacs/Vim/Vi - do they have a place in modern software development ecosystem? [closed]

  - by Anton Gogolev

  Watching all those screencasts (and listening all those podcasts) with more-or-less famous hackers/programmers I hear that many of those use emacs/vi(m) for their daily work. Now, I myself tried using both emacs and vim, and I honestly cannot understand why would anybody use these for any kind of serious development. The most advertised feature is something along the lines of "you'll be able to work with text (meaning cutting, pasting, duplicating, moving, etc) up to ten times faster than with conventional IDEs", but I don't buy that. When has the success of a software project been defined by how fast a programmer can juggle lines in a text editor or by saving a couple of keystrokes here and there? Plugins and extensions? I bet nothing comes close to R# or IDEA in terms of refactoring support ("Rename" refactoring implemented by means of "Search and Replace" is not a refactoring IMO); others are trivial. Ubiquitous and available everywhere? So what? How often do you find yourself editing files over a 300 baud connection on an esoteric *nix installation without a VCS? So here goes: do said editors have a justified place in a modern software development ecosystem?

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• What relationship do software Scrum or Lean have to industrial engineering concepts like theory of constraints?

  - by DeveloperDon

  In Scrum, work is delivered to customers through a series of sprints in which project work is time boxed to a fixed number of days or weeks, usually 30 days. In lean software development, the goal is to deliver as soon as possible, permitting early feedback for the next iteration. Both techniques stress the importance of workflow in which software work product does not accumulate in development awaiting release at some future date. Both permit new or refined requirements and feedback from QA and customers to be acted on with as little delay as possible based on priority. A few years ago I heard a lecture where the speaker talked briefly about a family of concepts from industrial engineering called theory of constraints. In the factory, they use an operations model based on three components: drum, buffer, and rope. The drum synchronizes work product as it flows through the system. Buffers that protect the system by holding output from one stage as it waits to be consumed by the next. The rope pulls product from one work station to the next. Historically, are these ideas part of the heritage of Scrum and Lean, or are they on a separate track? It we wanted to think about Scrum and Lean in terms of drum-buffer-rope, what are the parts? Drum = {daily scrum meeting, monthly release)? Buffer = {burn down list, source control system)? Rope = { daily meeting, constant integration server, monthly releases}? Industrial engineers define work flow in terms of different kinds of factories. I-Factories: straight pipeline. One input, one output. A-Factories: many inputs and one output. V-Factories: one input, many output products. T-Plants: many inputs, many outputs. If it applies, what kind of factory is most like Scrum or Lean and why?

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• Lack of Transparency in the Supply Chain Results in Inconsistent Reporting on Conflict Minerals

  - by Terri Hiskey

  May 31, 2014 was the official deadline for U.S.-listed companies to disclose use of conflict minerals to the SEC. Of the estimated 6,000 companies that were required to file audits of their tin, gold, tungsten or tantalum in their products, only 1,300 filed reports, and these results have revealed the ongoing challenges that many manufacturers are having complying with this legislation. An article authored by IDC analyst Heather Ashton,"Conflict Minerals Reporting Passes a Notable Milestone" notes that many leading companies such as Intel, Apple and HP filed their reports ahead of the deadline, but other companies are struggling with trying to trace their supply chain back to raw materials, especially as many non-U.S. based suppliers have no legal requirement to comply with the law since they are not U.S.-listed companies. This has resulted in widely varying levels of reporting from company to company. Check out the full article here. Are your customers experiencing the same pains?

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• At what point would you drop some of your principles of software development for the sake of more money?

  - by MeshMan

  I'd like to throw this question out there to interestingly see where the medium is. I'm going to admit that in my last 12 months, I picked up TDD and a lot of the Agile values in software development. I was so overwhelmed with how much better my development of software became that I would never drop them out of principle. Until...I was offered a contracting role that doubled my take home pay for the year. The company I joined didn't follow any specific methodology, the team hadn't heard of anything like code smells, SOLID, etc., and I certainly wasn't going to get away with spending time doing TDD if the team had never even seen unit testing in practice. Am I a sell out? No, not completely... Code will always been written "cleanly" (as per Uncle Bob's teachings) and the principles of SOLID will always be applied to the code that I write as they are needed. Testing was dropped for me though, the company couldn't afford to have such a unknown handed to the team who quite frankly, even I did create test frameworks, they would never use/maintain the test framework correctly. Using that as an example, what point would you say a developer should never drop his craftsmanship principles for the sake of money/other benefits to them personally? I understand that this can be a very personal opinion on how concerned one is to their own needs, business needs, and the sake of craftsmanship etc. But one can consider that for example testing can be dropped if the company decided they would rather have a test team, than rather understand unit testing in programming, would that be something you could forgive yourself for like I did? So given that there is something you would drop, there usually should be an equal cost in the business that makes up for what you drop - hopefully, unless of course you are pretty much out for lining your own pockets and not community/social collaborating ;). Double your money, go back to RAD? Or walk on, and look for someone doing Agile, and never look back...

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• Finding it Hard to Deliver Right Customer Experience: Think BPM!

  - by Ajay Khanna

  Our relationship with our customers is not a just a single interaction and we should not treat it like one. A customer’s relationship with a vendor is like a journey which starts way before customer makes a purchase and lasts long after that. The journey may start with customer researching a product that may lead to the eventual purchase and may continue with support or service needs for the product. A typical customer journey can be represented as shown below: As you may notice, customers tend to use multiple channels to interact with a company throughout their journey.  They also expect that they should get consistent experience, no matter what interaction channel they may choose. Customers do not like to repeat the information they have already provided and expect companies to remember their preferences, and offer them relevant products and services. If the company fails to meet this expectation, customers not only will abandon the purchase and go to the competitor but may also influence others’ purchase decision. Gone are the days when word of mouth was the only medium, and the customer could influence “Six” others. This is the age of social media and customer’s good or bad experience, especially bad get highly amplified and may influence hundreds of others. Challenges that face B2C companies today include: Delivering consistent experience: The reason that delivering consistent experience is challenging is due to fragmented data, disjointed systems and siloed multichannel interactions. Customers tend to get different service quality if they use web vs. phone vs. store. They get different responses from different service agents or get inconsistent answers if they call sales vs. service group in the company. Such inconsistent experiences result in lower customer satisfaction or NPS (net promoter score) numbers. Increasing Revenue: To stay competitive companies frequently introduce new products and services. Delay in launching such offerings has a significant impact on revenue realization. In addition to new product revenue, there are multiple opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell that impact bottom line. If companies are not able to identify such opportunities, bring a product to market quickly, or not offer the right product to the right customer at the right time, significant loss of revenue may occur. Ensuring Compliance: Companies must be compliant to ever changing regulations, these could be about Know Your Customer (KYC), Export/Import regulations, or taxation policies. In addition to government agencies, companies also need to comply with the SLA that they have committed to their customers. Lapse in meeting any of these requirements may lead to serious fines, penalties and loss in business. Companies have to make sure that they are in compliance will all such regulations and SLA commitments, at any given time. With the advent of social networks and mobile technology, companies not only need to focus on process efficiency but also on customer engagement. Improving engagement means delivering the customer experience as the customer is expecting and interacting with the customer at right time using right channel. Customers expect to be able to contact you via any channel of their choice (web, email, chat, mobile, social media), purchase via any viable channel (web, phone, store, mobile). Customers expect companies to understand their particular needs and remember their preferences on repeated visits. To deliver such an integrated, consistent, and contextual experience, power of BPM in must. Your company may be organized in departments like Marketing, Sales, Service. You may hold prospect data in SFA, order information in ERP, customer issues in CRM. However, the experience delivered to the customer must not be constrained by your system legacy. BPM helps in designing the right experience for the right customer and integrates all the underlining channels, systems, applications to make sure right information will be delivered to the right knowledge worker or to the customer every single time.     Orchestrating information across all systems (MDM, CRM, ERP), departments (commerce, merchandising, marketing service) and channels (Email, phone, web, social)  is the key, and that’s what BPM delivers. In addition to orchestrating systems and channels for consistency, BPM also provides an ability for analysis and decision management. By using data from historical transactions, social media and from other systems, users can determine the customer preferences, customer value, and churn propensity. This information, in the context, is then used while making a decision at a process step. Working with real-time decision management system can also suggest right up-sell or cross-sell offers, discounts or next-best-action steps for a particular customer. Timely action on customer issues or request is also a key tenet of a good customer experience. BPM’s complex event processing capabilities help companies to take proactive actions before issues get escalated. BPM system can be designed to listen to a certain event patters then deduce from those customer situations (credit card stolen, baggage lost, change of address) and do a triage before situation goes out of control. If such a situation arises you can send alerts to right people or immediately invoke corrective actions. Last but not least one of BPM’s key values is to drive continuous improvement. Learning about customers past experiences, interactions and social conversations, provide valuable insight. Such insight can be used to improve products, customer facing processes, and customer experience. You may take these insights as an input to design better more efficient and customer friendly sales, contact center or self-service processes. If customer experience is important for your business, make sure you have incorporated BPM as a part of your strategy to design, orchestrate and improve your customer facing processes.

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• What should happen at the start of a software project startup?

  - by Willem

  A quick introduction My college semesters include a 8 week project working for an actual company with a software need in order to get some much needed practical experience. I have just started such a project with 5 other students. We're required to spend roughly 40 hours a week per student on this project. We're working with SCRUM as the software development method, this was assigned by our teachers. The question Day one of the project just ended which has created some questions for me as to how to start a project in the 'real world'. Our first day included working on a project planning document (not sure what the English term is), creating a appointment with the company for an introduction and the opportunity to start specifying the requirements and setting up some standards for the behavior within the group. However these items didn't take that long to finish. We've made some concrete plans for tomorrow and the day after we'll meet the company. This still leaves several hours of 'work-time' unspent. Is it usual not being able to fill every hour of a day for work at the start of a project or are we simply too inexperienced to see what work needs to be done at this stage of a project, or are we, perhaps, going through the above list too fast? How does this work in the 'real world'? Do you spend your time wondering 'what should I do now', or do you have a clear view of what you're supposed to do at that moment?

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• Submitting software to a competition, it becomes their property?

  - by myrkos

  So I'm about to submit a game to a competition, but as I looked through the rules a chunk grabbed my attention: All Entries become the sole and exclusive property of Sponsor and will not be acknowledged or returned. Sponsor shall own all right, title and interest in and to each Entry, including without limitation all results and proceeds thereof and all elements or constituent parts of Entry (including without limitation the Mobile App, the Design Documents, the Video Trailer, the Playable and all illustrations, logos, mechanicals, renderings, characters, graphics, designs, layouts or other material therein) and all copyrights and renewals and extensions of copyrights therein and thereto. Without limitation of the foregoing, each Eligible Entrant shall and hereby does absolutely and irrevocably assign and transfer all of his or her right, title and interest in his or her Entry to Sponsor, and Sponsor shall have the right and may authorize others to use, copy, sublicense, transmit, modify, manipulate, publish, delete, reproduce, perform, distribute, display and otherwise exploit the Entry (and to create and exploit derivative works thereof) in any manner, including without limitation to embody the Entry, in whole or in part, in apps and other works of any kind or nature created, developed, published or distributed by Sponsor and to and register as a trademark in any country in Sponsor’s name any component of the Entry, without such Eligible Entrant reserving any rights or claims with respect thereto. Sponsor shall have the exclusive right, in perpetuity, throughout the Territory to change, adapt, modify, use, combine with other material and otherwise exploit the Entry in all media now known or hereafter devised and in any manner, in its sole and absolute discretion, without the need for any payment or credit to Entrant. So the game will become the sponsor's property; however, they don't ask for source code. So will I still own the rights to the source code, whatever that means? And if it doesn't win said competition, will I be able to publish it myself without their trademarks? I am very new to software legality stuff, so I would appreciate any clarification. Since there's a possibility I won't even own the source, is it possible to make the game core engine open source software with a not-very-restrictive license and include that in the project, so I at least still own the game engine? Or does it not work that way?

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• Hey, Programmers! We Got No Theory!

  Good software looks different than bad software Business - Technology - Retailers - Accounting - Industry-Specific

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• Lead Programmer definition clarification

  - by Junaid

  I am working on PHP and MySQL based web application for more than 5 years now. I started my career from Intern - Jr Developer - Software Developer - Sr. Software Engineer [Team Lead] that's what I am nowadays. I was looking at the link at Wikipedia regarding who is a lead programmer. The link states the following: A lead programmer is a software engineer in charge of one or more software projects. Alternative titles include Development Lead, Technical Lead, Senior Software Engineer, Software Design Engineer Lead (SDE Lead), Software Manager, or Senior Applications Developer. When primarily contributing in a high-level enterprise software design role, the title Software Architect (or similar) is often used. All of these titles can have different meanings depending on the context. My current job responsibilities are more or less like a Development Lead and to some extent near Software Architect because I usually design the core structure of new products and managing 2-3 project simultaneously and in the meantime involved in assisting other teams regarding the structural design of their projects, I am usually on call with clients along with project managers, I code most of the time when my team stuck somewhere / workload / integrating some third party API and etc. Primary reason of this writing is to know if I qualify for a Development Lead Title? in accordance with my above mentioned job descriptions?

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• What are the industry metrics for average spend on dev hardware and software? [on hold]

  - by RationalGeek

  I'm trying to budget for my dev shop and compare our budget items to industry expectations. I'm hoping to find some information on what percentage of a dev's salary is generally spent on tooling, both hardware and software. Where can I find such information? If instead there is a source that looks at raw dollars that is useful, too. I can extrapolate what I need from that. NOTE: Your anecdotal evidence from your own job will not be very helpful. I'm looking for industry average statistics from a credible source. EDIT: I'm reluctant to even keep this question going based on the passionate negative responses of commenters, but I do think this is valuable information (assuming anyone will care to answer) so let me make one attempt to clarify why I'm looking for this information, and then leave it at that. I'm not sure why understanding and validating my motives is a necessary step to providing the information, but apparently that is the case, so I will do my best. Firstly, let me respond to the idea that us "management types" shouldn't use these types of metrics to evaluate budgets. I agree in part. Ideally, you should spend whatever is necessary on developers in order to keep them fully happy and productive. And this is true of all employees. However, companies operate in a world of limited resources, and every dollar spent in one area means a dollar not spent in another. So it is not enough to simply say "I need to spend $10,000 per developer next year" without having some way to justify that position. One way to help justify it is to compare yourself against the industry. If it is the case that on average a software shops spends 5% (making up that number) of their total development budget (salaries being the large portion of the other 95%, for arguments sake), and I'm only spending 3%, it helps in the justification process. So, it is not my intent to use this information to limit what I spend on developers, but rather to arm myself with the necessary justification to spend what I need to spend on developers to give them the best tools I can. I have been a developer for many years and I understand the need for proper tooling. Next, let's examine the idea that even considering the relationship between a spend on developer salaries and developer tooling is ludicrous and should be banned from budgetary thinking. As Jimmy Hoffa put it in their comment, it's like saying "I'm going to spend no more than 10% of median employee salary on light bulbs and coffee from now on.". Well, yes, it is like saying that, and from a budgeting perspective, this is a useful way to look at things. If you know that, on average, an employee consumes X dollars of coffee a year, then you can project a coffee budget based on that. And you can compare it to an industry metric to understand where you fall: do you spend more on coffee than other companies or less? Why might this be? If you are a coffee supply manager, that seems like a useful thought process. The same seems to hold true for developers. Now, on to the idea that I need to compare "apples to apples" and only look at other shops that are in the same place geographically, the same business, the same application architecture, and the same development frameworks. I guess if I could find such a statistic that said "a shop that is exactly identical to yours spends X on developer tooling" it would be wonderful. But there is plenty of value in an average statistic. Here's an analogy: let's say you are working on a household budget and need to decide how much to spend on groceries. Is it enough to know that the average consumer spends 15% on groceries and therefore decide that you will budget exactly 15%? No. You have to tweak your budget based on your individual needs and situation. But the generalized statistic does help in this evaluation. You can know if your budget is grossly off from what others are doing, and this can help you figure out why this is. So, I will concede the point that it would be better to find statistics that align to my shop, though I think any statistics I could find would be useful for what I'm doing. In that light, let's say that my shop is mostly focused on ASP.NET web applications. That doesn't map perfectly to reality because large enterprises have very heterogenous IT environments. But if I was going to pick one technology that is our focus that would be it. But, if you were to point me at some statistics that are related to a Linux shop doing embedded Java applications, I would still find it useful as a point of comparison. SUMMARY: Let me try to rephrase my question. I'm trying to find industry metrics on how much dev shops spend on developer tooling, both hardware and software. I don't so much care whether it is expressed as a percentage of total budget or as X dollars per dev or as Y percentage of salary. Any metric would be useful. If there are metrics that are specific to ASP.NET dev shops in the Northeast US, all the better, but I would be happy to find anything.

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• Case studies for successful service (project) based software development businesses without constant overtime from its employees [closed]

  - by Ryan Taylor

  I work for an IT company that is primarily services (project) based rather than product based. All software engineers are salaried. The company has set new expectations that everyone should work 48 hours per week instead of 40. Note, this isn't occasional overtime due to crunches. This is the new 40. The reasoning is that this enables the company to provide benefits to its employees such as monetary incentives and training because the company is more profitable. more hours worked = more billable hours = larger profit I understand the need for profitability and the occasional crunch time and have put in the extra hours when it was needed and beneficial to the project. However, I am also very sensitive to work life balance and have raised my concerns about the the new expectation. My employer is open to other methods to increase profitability so I hold hope that we can turn things around before it becomes a horrible place to work. How does a services based company become more profitable without increasing the number of hours expected from it's salaried employees? Are there any case studies showing the pros and cons of consistent overtime? Are there any case studies for a successful service based business model (for software development companies) that does not require consistent overtime from its employees?

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• How to learn to deliver quality software designs when working on a tight deadline?

  - by chester89

  I read many books about how to design great software, but I kind of struggle to come up with a good design decisions when it comes to business apps, especially when the timeframe is tough. In the company I currently work for, the following situation happen all the time: my teamlead tells me that there's a task to do, I call some guy or a girl from business who tells me exactly what is it they want, and then I start coding. The task always fits in some existing application (we do only web apps or web services), usually it's purpose is to pull data from one datasource and put into the other one, with some business logic attached in the process. I start coding and then, after spending some time on a problem, my code didn't work as expected - either because of technical mistake or my lack of knowledge of the domain. The business is ringing me 2-3 times a day to hurry me up. I ask my team lead to help, he comes up, sees my code and goes like 'What's this?'. Then he throws away about half of my code, including all the design decisions I made, writes 2-3 methods that does the job (each of them usually 200-300 lines long or more, by the way), and task is complete, code works as it should have. The guy is smarter than me, obviously, and I'm aware of that. My goal is to be better software developer, that means write better code, not finish the job quicker with some crappy code. And the thing is, when I have enough time to tackle a problem, I can come up with a design that is good (in my opinion, of course), but I fall short to do so when I'm on a tight deadline. What should I do? I am fully aware that it's rather vague explanation, but please bear with me

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• How to cope with "Hidden IT..." Who writes and maintains the ad-hoc software applications?

  - by matcauthon

  Bigger companies usually have the problem, that it is not possible to write all programs employees want (to save time and to optimize processes) due to a lack of staff and money. Then hidden programs will be created by some people having (at least some) coding experience (or by cheap students/interns...). Under some circumstances these applications will raise in importance and spread from one user to a whole department. Then there is the critical point: Who will maintain the application, add new features, ...? And this app is critical. It IS needed. But the intern has left the company. No one knows how it works. You only have a bunch of sources and some sort of documentation. How do you cope with these applications? Can you "forbid" them? Can you control them? Do you have to write all apps (not Excel macros or some minor stuff) in the IT department?

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• How to handle the fear of future licensing issues of third-party products in software development?

  - by Ian Pugsley

  The company I work for recently purchased some third party libraries from a very well-known, established vendor. There is some fear among management that the possibility exists that our license to use the software could be revoked somehow. The example I'm hearing is of something like a patent issue; i.e. the company we purchased the libraries from could be sued and legally lose the ability to distribute and provide the libraries. The big fear is that we get some sort of notice that we have to cease usage of the libraries entirely, and have some small time period to do so. As a result of this fear, our ability to use these libraries (which the company has spent money on...) is being limited, at the cost of many hours worth of development time. Specifically, we're having to develop lots of the features that the library already incorporates. Should we be limiting ourselves in this way? Is it possible for the perpetual license granted to us by the third party to be revoked in the case of something like a patent issue, and are there any examples of something like this happening? Most importantly, if this is something to legitimately be concerned about, how do people ever go about taking advantage third-party software while preparing for the possibility of losing that capability entirely? P.S. - I understand that this will venture into legal knowledge, and that none of the answers provided can be construed as legal advice in any fashion.

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