Archive for April, 2006

Studying Jeff Atwood’s Paint Can

Monday, April 24th, 2006

I just found Jeff Atwood’s Coding Horror blog. He’s an interesting writer and thinker.
One of his postings presents a good example of the subtle role of skill even in highly scripted activities. He writes about following the instructions on a paint can. His article links to an earlier article, so you might want to read [...]

Defining Agile Methodology

Sunday, April 23rd, 2006

Brian Marick has offered a definition of agile methodology. I think his definition is strangely bulky and narrow. That’s because it’s not really a definition, but an example.
Those of us who’ve worked with Brian know that he doesn’t like to talk about definitions. He’d rather deal with rich examples and descriptions than labels. He worries [...]

“Use Version Control”

Sunday, April 16th, 2006

Darrell Norton says that “version control” is a best practice. I disagree with him about that, but his blog posting gives me an opportunity to show how context-driven reasoning works.
Darrell writes:
“If you’re looking for a No Best Practice rant like James Bach, then you won’t find it here. Instead, here I will propose the one [...]

Some Useful Definitions

Friday, April 14th, 2006

I use the following. I find these definitions to be flexible, inclusive, and consistent with the dictionary:
Technique: method.
Method: a way of doing something; an idea or ideas that specify behavior.
Methodology: a system of methods.
Approach: a way of enacting a method; a characteristic pattern that modifies method. E.g. “the stress testing technique may be performed using [...]