Tools don't solve problems, thinking does
On January 13 from 14:30 – 16:00 the Hogeschool Utrecht organizes a guest lecture by Sander Hoogendoorn, Principal Technology Officer at Capgemini. When asked who to invite for presenting a guest lecture, the students of the Hogeschool specifically requested for Sander. His lecture will be titled Implementing smart use cases in agile projects. Process, techniques, architecture and patterns. During this […]
Calvin & Hobbes is one of my favorite comic strips of all time. Funny and so well drawn. I was already convinced of the sheer genius of creator Bill Watterson – and now his work proves of predictive character as well. This fifteen years old Calvin & Hobbes Sunday comic strip illustrates a very fine metaphor for the world’s current […]
Over the past twenty or so years I have been involved in many software development projects, code reviews, and software factory implementations. Although I had stretched the virtues of good software architecture for decades, it wasn’t until a series of recent event, that I really started re-valuing of having a sound software architecture in place. And to me a well-defined […]
Suppose that while getting the groceries for the weekend, I decide to buy some steaks. I’m not sure yet whether it will be tournedos or regular steaks, but meat it is. So I go to my local butcher shop and lay down my requirements. The prices for tournedos and steak are known, they can be viewed from the examples on […]
When reasoning about business domains in projects with customers, domain objects and their services are always discussed. But if you listen more closely you might hear additional requirements on the domain. “Off course, customers can also find a book by typing in their ISBN” or “we also register the customer’s web site, by adding the URL.” When to use value […]
It’s hard to admit, but I only discovered the Scottish band Biffy Clyro by accident when I was browsing through the sales at an online record store. Bought their fourth (!) album Puzzle for a mere 5 Euro’s. But I’ve been playing it ever since (for months and months now). Gets better each time you hear the record. Found this […]
Alhoewel ik het liefst code schrijf, heb ik een zwak voor het schatten van projecten. En dan niet een academische functiepuntenanalyse, maar elke pragmatische aanpak verdient mijn steun. Tijdens mijn loopbaan heb ik aardig wat schattingen gemaakt en gezien. Van tenenkrommend tot waar-halen-ze-die-getallen-vandaan? Waarom rekenen veel organisaties voor projectmanagement een toeslag van 20%? Waarom geen 14.81%? Zouden schriftgeleerden in die […]
Earlier this week I presented a talk at the inspiring Software Developers Conference 2008 in Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands. My talk had an inspiring, or at least intriguing title: How to keep our jobs. Why? Well, let me share some thoughts on the productivity of software development projects. A 100-fold Recent research by Gartner shows that the productivity of software development […]
Finally, after some experimenting we’ve got it. My team managed to put out the broadcast of my talk on everything and the kitchen sink on YouTube, and moreover, link from that. See the results here. Introduction The introduction part with some jokes in it. Software architecture, design patterns and smart use cases in code A brief introduction into software architecture […]
Dat is schrikken! Als gevolg van de immer toenemende vraag naar software, en het dalen van het aantal studenten die sodtware development willen leren, moet de productiviteit van ontwikkelaars stijgen. Om precies te zijn: honderd keer. Althans, dat voorspelt Gartner. Honderd keer. Dat is niet mis. Nu houdt ik me al zo’n twintig jaar bezig met het vernieuwen van software […]
At the last Microsoft DevDays Conference (2008) in Amsterdam I did a talk (sorry, it’s in Dutch) that covered a lot of subjects, including software architecture, agile software development, dependency injection, domain modeling, smart use cases, Silverlight, WCF, model driven development, Tobago MDA, our Accelerated Delivery Platform and a lot of other stuff that I can’t remember (getting old). In […]
On LinkedIn I stumbled over this interesting question (posed by Tony Bruce). Well, I clearly and loudly have to disagree. Having guided several organizations from waterfall to agile, but also from chaos to agile I would definitively say that it is easier to transform a company without rigid methodology to agile, than to convert a waterfall styled company to agile. […]
I have a mobile device running Windows Mobile 6 which I use for synchronizing my contacts, tasks and appointments with Outlook running on my office laptop (yes, running Windows Vista). Now, since a week my mobile device stopped connceting to my laptop, much to my agony. So I tried al the options I could find on the internet for solving […]
Maybe you recognize the following situation: you are asked to estimate a new project. So you dive into the – often incomplete and unclear – specifications. After trying to understand the specifications and hopefully having a lot of meetings with the customer and end users you create an neat Excel spread sheet with a work breakdown structure, and some formulas […]
Het is maandagmorgen. Er schijnt een waterig zonnetje over Ede. Ik parkeer mijn auto op het parkeerterrein van de Reehorst dat verlaten oogt bij de start van de nieuwe werkweek. Ook vandaag is de Reehorst het toneel voor een Software Developers Event. Één sessie in het bijzonder heeft mijn interesse: Addressing non-functional requirements with aspects. Waarom nu juist deze sessie? […]
On May 28th, Capgemini organizes a free conference on the topic of smart use cases at Capgemini’s Conference Building in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Smart use cases represent a far more structured and equal-granular technique for modeling requirements than “regular” use cases do, based on Alistair Cockburn’s model of levels of use cases. In this model smart use cases comprise the […]
Het is half vier ‘s middags als mijn vliegtuig in een zachte motregen landt op het vliegveld van Seattle Tacoma. Omdat ik deel uitmaak van de Visual Studio Advisory Board ben ik op weg naar de campus van Microsoft in Redmond, het overbekende slaperige voorstadje van Seattle. Maar behalve dat Seattle de reuzen Microsoft en Boeing huisvest, kent ook koffieconcern […]
Vanmorgen bracht ik met mijn jongste zoontje Boet – net drie – een bezoek aan de dichtstbijzijnde kinderboerderij. Zijn eerste bezoek aan een kinderboerderij. Een openbaring. Toen ik hem na afloop, vlak voor zijn middagdutje vroeg of hij het leuk had gevonden in de kinderboerderij, antwoordde hij heel gedecideerd: “Ik vond het niet leuk in de kinderboerderij. Er waren geen […]
On Plaxo, a networking website, someone started a poll that was issued to answer the question: which region is the best one for offshore IT projects? Besides this being a fairly subjective question, none of the multi-choiced answers matched my opinion. The list lacked The Netherlands. You will find the poll at: http://pulse.plaxo.com/pulse/events/show/39328239. And since the poll’s author requested comments, […]
Can’t help it. Looking at someone else’s code is just plain fun. Especially when it’s not that well architectured. It seems that I keep running into nice fragments of how not to code. Well, to be honest, my colleagues tend to help out, and send me all kinds of code examples. Have a look at the tiny fragment below. If […]
Did a talk at Javapolis 2008 in Antwerp in December. As I stood in last minute for Andy Mulholland, group CTO at Capgemini, who was ill, I had little time to prepare a sound talk. That’s why I used a golden oldie, but still very valid! Project anti-patterns. How to make your projects fail Software development is hard. Many software […]