Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Pair progamming anyone?
I have some doubts about pair programming. First of all it's expensive for a company to pay two people writing with one keyboard. Some papers tell that they always produce less than separately. Second, it might be difficult indeed to pair them, in terms of matching the personalities. Coders are smart with strong egos...
However I understand that pair programming is a long term investment for collective code ownership and better code design.
Now, I have stumbled in this tool for Eclipse, called Cola, for real time shared coding. I haven't tried it yet, but it is very interesting. To me it seems to unleash all the pair programming power.
Cola: Real-Time Shared Editing from Mustafa K. Isik on Vimeo.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Thanks to Radiohead laser scanning is finally art
Thanks to Federico Gobbo for make me aware of this!
This is exactly what I work on in my company, check JRC 3D Reconstructor
Information on the making of and interactive application here
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Banish strong beliefs!
The other day, my estimated colleague said "I don't really believe in this Agile stuff, where I used to work we really need to collect all the specifications upfront". His mood was like saying "we NEED a Waterfall approach". Ok. Has him ever done something Agile? No.
The beginning (thanks ESSAP 2008)
Ok, here I am too to contribute at the multitude of blogs!
Yeah... like if someone finds interesting a drop of water in the ocean.
I've always wondered what kind of immense ego one has to have to think that his diary is worthy. I thought things like "Who are you? Don't you have anything better to do!?". Is my stream of consciousness really relevant to someone else?
But I found me reading the posts of my friends for just curiosity, to learn new things and know but they really think. Stuff that is more elaborate and intimate than the face to face talk. It's deeper feedback on the world around me. To improve the quality of my job or life. That is what is really all about.
Feedback, feedback, feedback. And sharing, sharing, sharing.
These are the leading principles of Agile methodologies. I find it interesting to have connections with control system theory. Systems with feedback can have the most controllable and stable (i.e. sustainable) performance.
Wait! This is not the new Scientology. This is the real stuff.
It's just one year that I'm digging to understand what Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and Agile/XP are preaching. I've just attended the fantastic 3rd European Summer School on Agile Programming (ESSAP: http://essap.dicom.uninsubria.it/) and in one way or the other this blog post is the first public consequence of it. One might say that we never talked about blogs during ESSAP. Right. Whatever.
I really recommend this course to any coder out there. I really appreciated the techniques to reduce redundant discussions during meetings using mind maps, wikis and simple stickers on a blackboard. That's pretty non-obvious in certain places like the one I come from...
And now expect more posts! About anything, from coding to computer graphics. From music to travels. You are warned!
