bitwix

Tangential comments about Software Development

Monday, October 25, 2010

(I'm All) Over Comprehensive Documentation

As an Agile Developer, I value working software over comprehensive documentation.

So it's a good sign when, as the software goes into full use by the customer, I find the time to write a user manual. I'd previously mastered the table of contents features, so the challenge was to find a shared location on the customer's network to put it. Writing the text I don't mind, and screenshots do make it look complete.

I intend to find out after a month who has used the manual. That's my problem with documentation - no feedback loop. Maybe this time will be different.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

It's worth being dogmatic as a learning tool

That's a quotation from Kent Beck on Software Engineering Radio www.se-radio.net Episode 167.

I think it's important he says "learning" tool, not "teaching". Inflict your dogma on yourself, not others. I went after 100% test coverage, and I learned a lot. I know I'd have had a mutiny if I'd demanded it of colleagues.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Scientists A-G

Mary Anning (1799–1847) was a British fossil collector, dealer and palaeontologist. Ichthyosaur
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Anning

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (born 1943) British astrophysicist. Pulsars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocelyn_Bell_Burnell

Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673) English aristocrat, a prolific writer, and a scientist. "Blazing World"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Cavendish,_Duchess_of_Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Mary Douglas (1921–2007) British anthropologist. "Purity and Danger"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Douglas

Gertrude Elion (1918–1999) American biochemist and pharmacologist, 1988 Nobel Prize for Medicine. 6-mercaptopurine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertrude_B._Elion

Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958) was a British biophysicist, physicist, chemist, biologist and X-ray crystallographer. DNA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin

Jane Goodall (born 1934) British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. Chimpanzees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall