I hate Geometry. Actually, I do not hate the concept of Geometry – I’m rather partial to shapes and appreciate the need to calculate the areas, perimeters, volumes, et al that they represent. What I hate about the subject – or should I say “hated” (past tense) since I haven’t had a Geometry class since the mid-1980’s – were the proofs I had to do in order to get full credit for my work. I’m a results-oriented person. I’m usually far more concerned about getting things done right than getting things done the right way. Sometimes I think there’s a bit too much focus on the process of how things … Read More
Tag Archives: Application Quality
Fixing Broken Windows
I will never be confused or lumped in with the modern assemblage of DIY’ers (Do It Yourselfers for those even less handy than I). My father was a firm believer in the idea that if you learned how to fix something yourself, you were putting someone else out of a job, and that was unfair, unpatriotic and un-American. I’m not quite that bad, though. I can change light bulbs, hang shelves and I’m a wiz at “put together” furniture from places like IKEA. Strangely enough, one of the things I do know how to do that most people would hire someone to do is fix windows – that’s the glass … Read More
A Gold Watch Salute for Technical Debt
Talented IT teams regularly beat themselves up over technical debt and have built comprehensive plans to effectively manage and minimize its effects. Prodded by Larry Dignan in a recent post, just for today, take a break and instead look at the technical debt practices of enterprise software vendors. You would think that with their huge teams, the large enterprise vendors would have wrestled technical debt to the ground a long time ago. You would be wrong. There are several reasons why large software vendors often have technical debt issues as severe or worse than their small vendor/application counterparts. Among these: Some of the companies are public and must continuously roll … Read More
CRASHing Into Technical Debt
Without going into specific finances, I make twice as much money as I did just 10 years ago. You would think this would be an indication that times, for me anyway, are good; yet I still seem to have the same question every month the week before I get paid, “Where did all my money go?” It really isn’t rocket science, though. While my income has more than doubled, my debts have gone up at least that much, if not more. Besides the obvious inflation factors (food, gas and entertainment costs have all gone way up in the last decade), there are many other things for which I am indebted. … Read More
Fed Should Budget for Technical Debt
It’s a presidential election year in the U.S. That means lots of attention being paid to people saying what they think they want us to hear in order to secure election to office. It also means the standard operations of government tend to fade into the background. Take the Federal budget debate. Most years it would be forefront material, particularly in a year when Congress vowed to make significant cuts to the budget in order to reduce the deficit. With election news grabbing the spotlight every night, though, preliminary discussions have generated very little news. One item that has been brought up, however, is the proposal to cut a portion … Read More
Wrapping Up Our ADM Discussion
There were so many great questions from attendees after the “Aligning Vendor SLAs with Long-Term Value” webinar that I moderated last week that we’ve compiled them here for you. Whether you participated in the webinar or not, I’m sure you’ll find the questions — and answers — fascinating. Plus, don’t forget to check out the results from the real-time poll we conducted during the webinar! If you participated in the webinar but just didn’t get around to asking a question, feel free to email me at steven.hall@isg-one.com Q. Are you seeing the use of Agile in maintenance as well as development? A. We are seeing Agile grow in global development … Read More
New Year, Same Fear
I’ve never been much of a horror movie fan. I think my deep-seated love and background of history and my fascination for things that are real diminishes my ability to kick back and allow my wits to be uprooted by monsters and other ghoulish figures like Jason from Friday the 13th or Freddie Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street. That doesn’t mean I don’t like scary movies. Movies featuring psychotic predators that do not exceed the realm of possibility keep me both glued and frightened. If you want to frighten me, give me Max Cady from Cape Fear or Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. Of course, even these characters are … Read More