Smart Bear Software recently released a white paper discussing the misconception that peer code review is a hindrance to Agile development methodologies. For anyone who regularly performs peer code reviews, would like to start performing them, or thinks they are an obstacle when it comes to Agile development should read this paper.
The paper talks about the history of code review, how code review aligns with Agile, types of lightweight code review, and techniques to perform optimized code reviews. Some of the key statements that I took away from the paper are this:
- Code review allows for “continuous attention to technical excellence and good design”. These enhances the agility of the code, the developers working on the code, and the overall Agile process.
- Code review “promotes sustainable development”. The “bus number” concept is one that I use consistently when promoting peer code review in my own workspace and corporate environment. The white paper explains it simply, “How many team members would have to get struck by a bus before no one was left that understood the code? If the bus number for a section of the code is less than two, then that’s a problem.”
- The final take-away comes from the Agile Manifesto Principles itself, “The best architectures, requirements, and design emerge from self-organizing teams.” The same is true of quality peer code review; “If peer code review is mandated by someone outside the team, its chance of success decreases. If team members do not want code review to succeed, it will fail.”
I use Code Collaborator. I think it’s the best tool out there for performing peer code review, especially with distributed development teams. I think peer code review allows developers to become better developers through the visibility and social nature of performing the review itself. My opinions may be a bit biased, based upon my experiences with Smart Bear Software, but, in fairness, this white paper discusses the enormous benefits of peer code review without discussing specific products. It only discusses the principals and observed benefits, and is in no way a sales pitch to buy their product.
I just saw on my RSS that GWT 2.0 has been released. Gonna go play now. Bye.
For anyone looking to upgrade their VS 2005 Web Application project to VS 2008, I found good walkthrough provided by Microsoft here.
I have started working on a new project in .NET and the Problem Domain (PD) was modeled in Visio UML. Fantastic. Now I wanted to forward engineer the UML into C# classes to begin development, but wait, I can’t. I only have Visio 2007 Professional, and the forward engineering features are only available in the Visio for Enterprise Architects version. Okay, not a problem, I’ll go download it from MSDN.
After starting the installation, I got an error message, “You must first install one of the qualified Visual Studio editions”. What the hell? Visual Studio 2008 isn’t good enough? I sure as hell don’t want to install another, older version Visual Studio just so I can install Visio for EA.
After poking around, I came across this registry trick. Visio for Enterprise Architects is looking for the existence of the following key:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Setup\VS\VSTD\
Within this key should be the String value “ProductDir”. The text value for ProductDir can be anything other than a null value.
Once you add this key to your registry, the Visio for Enterprise Architects installer will work as hoped.
I installed Google Chrome Frame about a month ago, and I am very impressed with how responsive and quick Internet Explorer is with JavaScript intensive web pages now. If you use a lot of JavaScript intensive websites, e.g., Facebook, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar, etc., you will notice a significant improvement in performance when using IE with the Chome plug-in.
I was also interested to find out that the new Google Wave application only works with IE if you have the plug-in installed.
The plug-in works in Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8, and requires you to have Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7.
I just finished leading the modeling session as chief architect of the problem domain (PD) for a new application, and I had forgotten how exhausting the process is. We had a fantastic moderator who did well to keep us on point and focused toward our objective. We have about 50 or so objects, and I think we will need about 10-20 more moment-interval (pinks) to handle the additional audit trail requirements.
I am working on finishing up merging and formatting the model notes from all the developers who participated. I should be done with that by the end of the day. Then it’s on to the real work of breaking this thing down into discrete features that we can put into work packages and get this thing built.
I did have a few “Being John Malkovich” moments during the modeling session when I thought Jeff De Luca was in my head controlling my actions, but it was all for the better.
The great thing about modeling a PD is the sense of accomplishment at the end of two weeks and seeing your problem domain in front of you on a 6’x10’ sheet of paper.
Now I need to starting working on the UI and SI design.
My old Kenwood KDC-519 receiver in my F-150 died two weeks ago so I decided to replace it with a new Kenwood Excelon KDC-X492. I liked the KDC-X492 because it has both 3.5mm and USB interfaces on the front so you can connect your iPod and other auxiliary devices. It also supports Bluetooth, Sirius/XM satellite, HD radio, and MP3, AAC and WMA formats. It puts out 50W maximum which is plenty to power the new KFC-C6882ie 6×8” speakers I purchased to replace the factory 6x8s in the doors and in the rear. These speakers sound great, and are a great replacement for the factory speakers. Each speaker is rated at 60W, and has a peak power handling of 240W. They have a 92dB/W sensitivity and a frequency response of 25Hz to 25kHz.
If you are looking for a good set of replacement components for your Ford or Mazda. I highly recommend the Kenwood KDC-X492 with a set of KFC-C6882ie speakers.
I was looking for a version of PyXML for Python 2.5 and had some difficulty due to the project being unmaintained. I was able to find someone that compiled PyXML 0.8.4 for Python 2.5. You can find it here.
When Oracle first announced that they were acquiring BEA, the first thought that went through my head wasn’t “I wonder if Oracle AS will be dropped in favor of WebLogic.”; it was “Oh great! Now I won’t be able to find shit on the WebLogic forums too.”
It’s been several months since the acquisition, but today I got fed up. BEA used to have a website, dev2dev.bea.com, where they would post clever tips, tricks, etc. about the WebLogic platform. I would have thought that Oracle would have kept all of this “useful” content alive after the website consolidation, but I was wrong. It wasn’t bad enough they killed the forums at BEA, which has since caused all Google searches to come up with a plethora of dead links since the BEA URLs no longer exist. Links from other forums to BEA listings are now worthless as well.
But hey, I can always go over to the forums at Oracle’s website and search there right? One would think that was a logical solution, that is until they found out the honest truth: Oracle’s search engine is powered by the Total Perspective Vortex. At least that is what it feel’s like each time I attempt to find any God-damned thing on their site.
All I wanted was the article about the Thread Dump Analyser (TDan) tool that was written a while back. It’s the best tool out there IMHO for performing thread dump analysis and being able to represent the output in a visual way. It’s a good thing I keep a backup copy of the tool available.
Good Night.
It’s official. The FTC and CCB have both approved Pfizer’s acquisition of Wyeth. No doubt the Collegeville airspace is going to be a bit more busy over the next few weeks.
You can read about it here.
I’ll be spending the rest of the week performing a global search and replace on all the professional social websites I visit.
