October 2004 - Posts

• ProjectDistributor - project feedback now working again

  There I was, so happy with myself. ProjectDistributor was ticking along nicely and I was oblivious to the fact that I - being the bonehead that I am - had totally broken the Contact forms which are attached to the individual Projects.  It obviously broke late last week when I turned ViewState off for most of the pages. So, If you've been trying to send feedback to Groups regarding their projects can you please go and re-try; they work now, promise! Posted Oct 31 2004, 02:36 PM by digory with no comments Filed under: Tools

• Community Culture

  There's a Bedouin proverb which goes like this: Me against my brother Me and my brother against my cousin Me, my brother and my cousin against the foreigner In the past two years there's been a rash of websites which have sprung up to cater for the formation of communities and, looking at them, you really have to wonder whether we have improved the ability to foster a rich community experience.  Communities which prosper over the next 12 months will be communities who are able to create a mentoring atmosphere and gain retention by helping struggling users to learn better ways of doing things or, to provide some sort of validation as to where they fit within the wider community pool. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against "Top N X" lists; I'm just concerned that we are producing boilerpate community sites from a template which may not be a great model. [ Nothing Playing. ] Posted Oct 31 2004, 01:35 PM by digory with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Community

• Decision making, it's not always a case of right and wrong

  The other day I mentioned that I was on the cusp of an important decision regarding my career and implied - via my favourite piece of poetry - that there were 2 distinct paths that I could take.  After asking some colleagues for advice I was pointed towards a wonderful parable titled "Buridan's ass": A paradox of medieval logic concerning the behaviour of an ass who is placed equidistantly from two piles of food of equal size and quality. Assuming that the behaviour of the ass is entirely rational, it has no reason to prefer one pile to the other and therefore cannot reach a decision over while pile to eat first, and so remains in its original position and starves. No answers of course but at least it offers some sound perspective into the paranoia surrounding the decision making process. Posted Oct 30 2004, 04:45 PM by digory with 2 comment(s)

• First post with PostXING

  I downloaded and installed PostXING today:     Project Distributor :: Blue Fenix :: PostXING The download comes with source code and is packed full of features.  I mostly grabbed it for the cross-posting functionality so that I can more easily maintain the 2 or 3 blogs that I currently run.  The tool not only handles cross-posting but also offers rich functionality for commonly used features such as: Inserting syntax highlighted snippets It imports all categories from your blog Allows for, not only blog configurations but also Ftp configs for uploading images and files I know that Chris did some work recently on the tool and, although there's not much more to add to make it totally awesome I've already noted that it could probably do with offline functionality.   If you use the tool and have ideas about enhancements you can offer them via the feedback form for the project:     http://markitup.aspxconnection.com/Projects/Project.aspx?projectId=12 Posted Oct 29 2004, 05:39 AM by digory with 2 comment(s)

• An elevator pitch for SOA

  OK, so you are talking with a client and a couple of their developers when they client turns to you and says: "We've heard a bit about SOA, what is it exactly?".  You've got 3 minutes... GO! UPDATE:  Here's my basic version of the pitch: SOA is popular because it allows disparate system to be connected while remaining independant internally.  Services connect via a messaging layer, meaning that data can be exchanged through schematized data structures. The message layer provides a layer of of indirection which allows individual Services to be maintained independantly behind their external facade.  This indirection allows for a plug-and-play style of architecture allowing individual services to be maintained or upgraded with less stress placed on regression testing of dependant linkages. Posted Oct 28 2004, 08:48 AM by digory with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Rants

• You don't need to have a deathmarch

  When creating project plans make sure that you define some interim milestones for the development phase.  Interim milestones allow the development team to see measurable progress and provide key stakeholders with visibility about the progress of the project.  Interim deliverables are also used to keep bottlenecks to a minimum and to reduce complexity when it comes to things such as testing and regression testing. Recently I've seen a couple of projects become unstable through a lack of clearly defined interim deliverables.  In his presentation titled: "21 rules of thumb for shipping Great Software on time", Jim McCarthy talks about how an application is like a big bowl of jelly and how it is important to get to a known point and stay there.  Getting to a known state allows the jelly to stop wobbling and again gives everybody with a clearer vision of measurable progress.  The projects that I've seen go pear shaped were being developed in a fashion whereby it was not possible to get to a known state until the end of the project. Recently, on one very recent project (which had a particularly low morale and was showing clear signs of being a Colonel Kurtz project) I was able to turn momentum within days by simply laying out some important interim milestones and hitting them early.  These deliverables were designed to get important features to a "complete" stage and into test quickly which had a positive knock-on effect of restarting the communication between stakeholders as feedback trickled back from test into dev and up the chain of command.  Everybody was energized and the juggernaut lurched forward; momentum is good. Last word... interim milestones should mark important peaks.  Don't set interim milestones around trivial marks. Posted Oct 28 2004, 07:54 AM by digory with no comments Filed under: goals2004_ProjectManagement

• The Road Not Taken

  The Road Not Taken has long been my favourite piece of poetry because of its darkness and its deep sense of nostalgia.  I read it whenever my life reaches an important juncture as I search for meaning and answers to unanswerable questions... Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Posted Oct 27 2004, 11:11 PM by digory with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Rants

• ProjectDistributor - online storage for tools and code snippets

  ProjectDistributor is now pretty stable and nearly feature complete for iteration 1.  This application was created as a place to store small or trivial pieces of code.  Either code which was expensive to create - such as a prototype - or code which will be useful again in the future - such as a macro, server control or stored procedure. It's not that clear on the site "yet", but, there are 2 levels of membership on the site: Users and Groups.  Users have the ability to login and use their "User Profile" page to store bookmarks to their favourite online tools.  You can view my user profile page here:     http://markitup.aspxconnection.com/Users/User.aspx?userId=7 Once you are a user you are eligible to create a Group.  You need a Group to upload and manage your own tools and widgets.  If you want a Group just let me know what you'd like the name of your group to be.  I need a GroupName - which will form part of the Url for your landing page and a GroupFriendlyName which will be used as the display name of your group.  For example, my group is:     GroupName :    MarkItUp     GroupFriendlyName :  MarkItUp And you can see my Groups landing page here:     http://markitup.aspxconnection.com/Groups/Group.aspx?groupId=3 Groups can actually have multiple users and they can be either private or public, likewise, you can have Projects which are private or public. One of the major drawcards of the site is the WebServices:     http://markitup.aspxconnection.com/WebServices/ProjectDistributor.asmx ...these could allow you to potentially host your tools (and their source) on ProjectDistributor and serve them up on your own site via Webservice calls. If you'd like to host your tools/widgets/etc on ProjectDistributor, create yourself a User account and shoot me an e-mail with your preferred Group details and I'll set it straight up for you. Posted Oct 26 2004, 11:24 PM by digory with no comments Filed under: Tools, Web Forms, Code Snippets

• New Web Widget: Hierarchy Wizard

  Just posted a prototype for new reuseable Wizard Framework on ProjectDistributor: Project Distributor :: MarkItUp  - Hierarchy Wizard Posted Oct 26 2004, 10:57 PM by digory with no comments Filed under: Tools, Web Forms

• The Colonel Kurtz Project

  Patricks Cooney, theorizes over a new project management orthodoxy...http://www.patrickcooney.com/weblog.aspx?i=61 How do we spot Kurtz projects? Try the following: Scanty information: Nobody is saying anything, documentation is non-existent or irrelevant, ship dates are not seriously discussed Messianic leader, whispers of insanity Total collapse in the chain of command The project team has 'gone up the river', and nobody knows when they are coming back Posted Oct 26 2004, 10:37 PM by digory with 1 comment(s) Filed under: goals2004_ProjectManagement