Why do some managers managers value speed over quality? I can think of two reasons: they believe the buggy software is normal, or they get rewarded for delivering buggy software early.The two ideas are often combined. If buggy software is normal, let's set an "aggressive" date for it to be "finished" (we're rewarded for meeting that date, even...

What does Jini do that Rendezvous doesn't do more elegantly and simply?http://developer.apple.com/darwin/projects/rendezvous/

By keeping the "internal code quality" high -- which means no unnecessary code, writing code that does what it is supposed to do *and no more* -- teams can go faster, and meet the demands of "external quaility" -- the requirements of the customers.Teams that try to attain speed by avoiding good practices pay the price in having to fix bugs that...

David Pimentel, Cornell professor of ecology, says: "The next time you're pumping gas or paying the heating bill, ponder this: As high as fuel prices are in this country, they would be even higher without government subsidies to prop up the industry. Instead of paying at the pump, every American family is paying about $410 in taxes each year...

David Pimentel, Cornell professor of ecology, says: "The next time you're pumping gas or paying the heating bill, ponder this: As high as fuel prices are in this country, they would be even higher without government subsidies to prop up the industry. Instead of paying at the pump, every American family is paying about $410 in taxes each year...

Matt Heusser writes on StickyMinds: In less-healthy organizations, feedback may be viewed as criticism or personal attack. When this happens, the organization cuts off its own ability to react and respond to change. ...[feedback] must be positioned so the recipient does not feel insulted or drawn into a spitting contest.... Another way to foul...

Matt Heusser writes on StickyMinds: In less-healthy organizations, feedback may be viewed as criticism or personal attack. When this happens, the organization cuts off its own ability to react and respond to change. ...[feedback] must be positioned so the recipient does not feel insulted or drawn into a spitting contest.... Another way to foul...

On unit tests / programmer tests: Michael Feathers: "Recently when people have asked me what a unit test is I tell them it is a test that runs in under 1/10th of a second." (XP mailing list) "If the computer gets wet, would compressing its files help dry it out?" (said in a dream I had.) George Lakoff on conservatives' use of language to...

On unit tests / programmer tests: Michael Feathers: "Recently when people have asked me what a unit test is I tell them it is a test that runs in under 1/10th of a second." (XP mailing list) "If the computer gets wet, would compressing its files help dry it out?" (said in a dream I had.) George Lakoff on conservatives' use of language to...

In training killer whales and other (pretty intelligent) animals (including dogs and people), you try to enhance the behaviors you want, and reduce the behaviors you don't want.Since you could get your head bitten off if you tried to punish a killer whale, you reduce undesirable behaviors by trying to refocus the animal's [or person's]...

Ward writes: [HyperCard] Stacks were already easy to edit. The fields were automatically WYSIWYG editors. But linking was a pain that involved moving between both cards involved. My Links field abandoned regular stack links and used search on demand instead. Operationally, one would just type links they might follow in the Links field. Each...

Ward writes: [HyperCard] Stacks were already easy to edit. The fields were automatically WYSIWYG editors. But linking was a pain that involved moving between both cards involved. My Links field abandoned regular stack links and used search on demand instead. Operationally, one would just type links they might follow in the Links field. Each...

I'm still using CVS, but Subversion looks very good - check out this article by Mike Mason: http://osdir.com/Article203.phtml. There a book on-line as well.

I'm still using CVS, but Subversion looks very good - check out this article by Mike Mason: http://osdir.com/Article203.phtml. There a book on-line as well.

I think bonus should be tied to profits. If the company makes a large profit because your team's product is good or great, then the whole team should get a share of the profits.