http://niksilver.com Mostly about the management of software development Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:01:12 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The traditional way to track a project budget (which is to say, the way I learnt to do it first) is to track the time people spend on the project each day and add it up. I call this bottom-up budget tracking. Agile forces an alternative approach, which I call ... http://niksilver.com/2008/06/24/top-down-budget-tracking/ A quick plug for guardian.co.uk's software architect Mat Wall. He gave an interview to Software Engineering Radio, and they've just put up the podcast. It's a bit hardcore techie at times, and all the better for that. Even if you're not hardcore techie yourself Mat and co-interviewee Erik Doernenburg provide ... http://niksilver.com/2008/05/08/a-podcast-on-building-guardiancouk/ I've just finished a fortnight's holiday which I (foolishly) spent mostly in front of a PC developing a never-ending little application. But unexpectedly, despite the trivial nature of my project, I rediscovered a number of important lessons more usually associated with serious application development. The software I'm writing is a just ... http://niksilver.com/2008/04/06/big-lessons-from-a-little-project/ There were very few moments for me during QCon London 2008 of earth-shaking enlightenment -- if any. But every hour of the three days of the conference there were insights and guidance that could be tucked away, and reused later to save hours, days or weeks of time elsewhere. Snake-oil ... http://niksilver.com/2008/03/17/qcon-london-2008-a-michelin-starred-deli/ At the weekend the Guardian website went through one of the most significant transformations in its history: we moved our news, politics and Observer content into the new design and new content management system, and we simultaneously launched a lot of new functionality, both internal and external. There's an introduction and ... http://niksilver.com/2008/02/11/guardiancouk-steps-to-a-smooth-launch/ While I'm usually proud of the work I'm involved with, I'm rarely happy for long. There are always ways to improve, and I'm usually dissatisfied by one unmet ideal or another. Almost since I started in this field I've been vexed by how much of web development is "urgent" rather ... http://niksilver.com/2008/02/04/the-unstoppable-urgency-of-web-development/ I thought I'd answer a question that comes up from time to time about the Java development and redesign work going on for the Guardian Unlimited site: "Why didn't you write it in Ruby?" I was reminded of this question because of an excellent post over at Manageability.org in which ceperez ... http://niksilver.com/2008/01/23/but-why-didnt-you-write-it-in-ruby/ I was surprised to see Ken Schwaber talking about burn-down charts, as burn-up charts provide more information and are -- for me -- the preferred option. So this is a short article about burn-up charts and burn-down charts, both great tools for measuring progress. First, though, a hat-tip to Ian Carroll, ... http://niksilver.com/2008/01/19/burn-up-and-burn-down-charts/ A recent conversation with a colleague got me thinking about so-called "lightweight" systems, and when they become more trouble then they're worth. He was frustrated by some problems he was having; even more so, he explained, because he thought he was dealing with something that was "lightweight". It's a seductive ... http://niksilver.com/2007/12/27/lightweight-versus-heavyweight-the-cost-is-in-the-management/ When do we need user acceptance testing? And when can we get away without it? User acceptance testing (UAT) is when your software goes in front of the user to get final sign-off -- and when they ask for changes if not. In theory you shouldn't need UAT at all (didn't ... http://niksilver.com/2007/12/09/we-heart-uat/