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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]