Patterns of successful software projects

Raj Wall blogging on Patterns of successful software projects.

There are five basic truths that make a successful software project: regardless of what development environment or programming language is used, no matter whether it is managed using an “agile“ or a waterfall process, OO, SOA, AI or punch cards.

They are:

1. The customer/user has a reason for the project (based on their need, a demonstrated ROI, “it sounds cool“, etc)


2. The developers know what they are building (there is some mechanism for requirements specification)


3. The developers know how they are to do it (knowledge and usage of tools and “process“)


4. The development team will know when they are done (there exists some “exit“ milestone criteria)


5. The customer/user agrees (they accept or purchase it)


6. My claim is that all software project “failures” can be traced back to a violation of one or more of these.

My claim is that all software project “failures” can be traced back to a violation of one or more of these.

Programming data in C# 3.0

Anders talks about a feature he's working on for C# 3.0 that aims to make data programmable in a general purpose and truly object oriented syntax; something that just doesn't exist today.

Watch it on Channel9

Jenny18 - A Cybersex Bot Implemented in Eliza

It turns out that pornbots are among the class of Eliza-derivatives that can pass a Turing Test (or rather, horny sex-chat boys are among the class of human beings that can't tell a chatterbot from a person)

'eliza' is a program that talks to you, pretending to be a psychologist. its script of possible responses is super tiny, so it doesn't fool anyone. or so i thought.

so i replaced eliza's tiny, boring script with a massive dumb blonde script that has like 3,800 responses on all sorts of topics, but mostly sex. jenny18 is very horny and she loves talking to horny guys. and everyone knows the best place to talk to horny guys is on dalnet irc sex channels.

More on Jenny18 (Contains links to transcripts of IM-based sex. So be warned.)

Move Over DataGrid, There's a New Grid in Town!

A good article on GridView control by Dino Esposito.

Download Lookout here

Lookout for Outlook is now available at MSN Sandbox. Downlaod Now!

there's just nothing left to buy

Microsoft stunned investors yesterday with the announcement that they were distributing 75 billion in cash because they had run out of things to buy. According to Microsoft CFO John Connors "With the acquisition of Lookout, we've crossed every single item off our shopping list. Frankly, there's just nothing left to buy.

Hmm... Wish me too could say that here is nothing more left to buy... ahh... just wishing :)

The environment required for you to be a Productive Software Engineer

For a written test in the hiring process, I saw this question:

Write in about 200 words, the environment required for you to be a productive software engineer. Your answer may touch the following points:
1. Supervision
2. Process
3. Measures

Hmm… I was thinking on this when I discovered that more than Supervision, Process and Measures I require some more basic thing to be productive. This would include things like some good coffee/Pepsi, a nice fast (fast means you don’t have to take a break while the compile happens) machine and so on. Anyway, I thought “Hey, not attempt answering the question?” and here is the end result that took me about 15 minutes. 

A software engineer to be productive requires a good work environment (related to work he is doing) and a good organizational environment (related to the organization he is working for).
 
Looking at the first part of the puzzle, an environment that is challenging (to the grey cells) and is also a fun environment – something that invites you to be there in the morning and you are not there just so that you can earn your salary. The direct conclusion is that the person has to be interested in the field of work and the projects. He should not feel that his talents are being wasted in this environment as he is not working on anything challenging.
 
After having put the first part of the puzzle in place let’s turn our attention to the second part, that is the organizational part – Processes, Measures and Supervision (??) The endeavor is to understand what would be a good environment in this sense.
 
Software is still very much an infant field and processes and measure have been a very new concept in the field and would take some time before it gets engrained in. However, the most important thing on this front would be to understand the fact that processes are fine so long as they assist people in doing what they need to be doing. If the processes become a road block, then it’s the processes that need to change and not the people. The processes should serve the people; if it goes the other way round it would be sure recipe for disaster.
 
Measure again can be very useful towards improvement and if applied incorrectly or if wrong measures are chosen it could be worse than no measures. Interestingly some very common measure (time worked, Lines of Code produced etc.) are really a very bad measure that does not indicate productivity. A good measure would be function points implemented.
 
And finally, there is the question of supervision. Supervision (as in a production line) is an impossible to achieve dream. What most software engineer would look for is not supervision; rather it is help and guidance. A project manager would therefore need to be a facilitator and not a supervisor or manager (Project coordinator might be better).
 
The understanding that software development (which keeps the developer happy) is something that is not the same as factory production line and the differences are important. If we attempt to apply the same methodology to this field that is very different, we could end up very badly. This was an attempt at identifying some differences and how they can be resolved.

Software That Lasts 200 Years

Likewise, human societies also create infrastructure that are built once, then used and trusted for a long period of time. By contrast, software has historically been built assuming that it will be replaced in the near future

Hmmm.....
http://www.bricklin.com/200yearsoftware.htm

Digital disgust

Thomas Sowell has this piece on how difficult it is to use software. As a developer, I don't know if to agree with him or just say that "the software is perfectly normal and anyone with an IQ greater than that of a flowerpot can understand it". But I guess the truth is somewhere in between.

DotNet 2.0 Beta1 SDK Available now

Dot-Net SDK 2.0 Beta 1 is now available for x86 and IA64. The runtime that has been available for quite some time now can also be downloaded from the same location.

Will Compasses Point South?

The collapse of the Earth's magnetic field, which both guards the planet and guides many of its creatures, appears to have started in earnest about 150 years ago. The field's strength has waned 10 to 15 percent, and the deterioration has accelerated of late, increasing debate over whether it portends a reversal of the lines of magnetic force that normally envelop the Earth.

This computer simulation shows the Earth's interior as its magnetic field reverses, perhaps because of changes in the flow of molten iron in the core.


From New York Times

You can vote, but can't drink

When Dickens wrote, ‘The law is an ass, an idiot,' in Oliver Twist, he wasn't writing about Delhi's drinking age limit, but he might well have been. One can get a driver's licence at 18, vote a government into office at 18, get married at 18 if female and 21 if male. One can even be hanged at 18. So shouldn't one be able to legally drink at 18?

Read the IndiaTimes article here.

DMCA says you can't fix your own tape-drive

DMCA hammer comes down on tech service vendor

A district court in Boston has used the DMCA to grant a preliminary injunction against a third party service vendor who tried to fix StorageTek tape library backup systems for legitimate purchasers of the system.

How is this a DMCA violation? Well, it turns out that StorageTek allegedly uses some kind of algorithmic "key" to control access to its "Maintenance Code", the module that allows the service tech to debug the storage system. The court found that third party service techs who used the key without StorageTek's permission "circumvented" to gain access to the copyrighted code in violation of the DMCA, even though they had the explicit permission of the purchasers to fix their machines.

Maria Sharapova Inc!

Maria Sharapova Inc!

Move over, Anna. Move aside, Williams sisters. Gabriela (Sabatini), you are only a distant memory. The next big thing has arrived. And it has arrived on really long legs.

Sex once a week=$50,000

Read it here

The economists compared the happiness levels produced by a vigorous sex life with other activities whose economic values had been calculated in prior research, allowing them to impute, in dollars, how much happiness sex was worth.

They also estimated that increasing the frequency of sexual intercourse from once a month to at least once a week provided as much happiness as putting $50,000 in the bank.

A lasting marriage, by comparison, offers about $100,000 worth of happiness a year — that is, on average, a single person would need to receive $100,000 annually to be as happy as a married person with the same education, job status and other characteristics.

Divorce, on the other hand, imposes an emotional toll of about $66,000 a year, though there may be a short-term economic gain from the immediate relief provided by leaving your spouse.

World's First Cyborg! Challenge to God?

If Professor Kevin Warwick has his way, then 50 years from now most human brains will be linked electronically through a global computer network.

According to The New Zealand Herald , the professor and his wife contacted each other through implants in their arms, through what can be termed as the first direct link between nervous systems.

Read the complete article here.

Advice to Young Brides

After the The Good Wife Guide.., here is another one - Advice to Young Brides.

INSTRUCTION AND ADVICE FOR THE YOUNG BRIDE

To the sensitive young woman who has had the benefits of proper upbringing, the wedding day is, ironically, both the happiest and most terrifying day of her life. On the positive side, there is the wedding itself, in which the bride is the central attraction in a beautiful and inspiring ceremony, symbolizing her triumph in securing a male to provide for all her needs for the rest of her life. On the negative side, there is the wedding night, during which the bride must pay the piper, so to speak, by facing for the first time the terrible experience of sex.

At this point, dear reader, let me concede one shocking truth. Some young women actually anticipate the wedding night ordeal with curiosity and pleasure! Beware such an attitude! A selfish and sensual husband can easily take advantage of such a bride. One cardinal rule of marriage should never be forgotten: GIVE LITTLE, GIVE SELDOM, AND ABOVE ALL, GIVE GRUDGINGLY. Otherwise what could have been a proper marriage could become an orgy of sexual lust.

On the other hand, the bride's terror need not be extreme. While sex is at best revolting and at worse rather painful, it has to be endured, and has been by women since the beginning of time, and is compensated for by the monogamous home and by the children produced through it.

It is useless, in most cases, for the bride to prevail upon the groom to forego the sexual initiation. While the ideal husband would be one who would approach his bride only at her request and only for the purpose of begetting offspring, such nobility and unselfishness cannot be expected from the average man.

Most men, if not denied, would demand sex almost every day. The wise bride will permit a maximum of two brief sexual experiences weekly during the first months of marriage. As time goes by she should make every effort to reduce this frequency.

Feigned illness, sleepiness, and headaches are among the wife's best friends in this matter. Arguments, nagging, scolding, and bickering also prove very effective, if used in the late evening about an hour before the husband would normally commence his seduction.

Clever wives are ever on the alert for new and better methods of denying and discouraging the amorous overtures of the husband. A good wife should expect to have reduced sexual contacts to once a week by the end of the first year of marriage and to once a month by the end of the fifth year of marriage.

By their tenth anniversary many wives have managed to complete their child bearing and have achieved the ultimate goal of terminating all sexual contacts with the husband. By this time she can depend upon his love for the children and social pressures to hold the husband in the home.

Just as she should be ever alert to keep the quantity of sex as low as possible, the wise bride will pay equal attention to limiting the kind and degree of sexual contacts. Most men are by nature rather perverted, and if given half a chance, would engage in quite a variety of the most revolting practices. These practices include among others performing the normal act in abnormal positions; mouthing the female body; and offering their own vile bodies to be mouthed in turn.

Nudity, talking about sex, reading stories about sex, viewing photographs and drawings depicting or suggesting sex are the obnoxious habits the male is likely to acquire if permitted.

A wise bride will make it the goal never to allow her husband to see her unclothed body, and never allow him to display his unclothed body to her. Sex, when it cannot be prevented, should be practiced only in total darkness. Many women have found it useful to have thick cotton nightgowns for themselves and pajamas for their husbands. These should be donned in separate rooms. They need not be removed during the sex act. Thus, a minimum of flesh is exposed.

Once the bride has donned her gown and turned off all the lights, she should lie quietly upon the bed and await her groom. When he comes groping into the room she should make no sound to guide him in her direction, lest he take this as a sign of encouragement. She should let him grope in the dark. There is always the hope that he will stumble and incur some slight injury which she can use as an excuse to deny him sexual access.

When he finds her, the wife should lie as still as possible. Bodily motion on her part could be interpreted as sexual excitement by the optimistic husband.

If he attempts to kiss her on the lips she should turn her head slightly so that the kiss falls harmlessly on her cheek instead. If he attempts to kiss her hand, she should make a fist. If he lifts her gown and attempts to kiss her anyplace else she should quickly pull the gown back in place, spring from the bed, and announce that nature calls her to the toilet. This will generally dampen his desire to kiss in the forbidden territory.

If the husband attempts to seduce her with lascivious talk, the wise wife will suddenly remember some trivial non-sexual question to ask him. Once he answers she should keep the conversation going, no matter how frivolous it may seem at the time.

Eventually, the husband will learn that if he insists on having sexual contact, he must get on with it without amorous embellishment. The wise wife will allow him to pull the gown up no farther than the waist, and only permit him to open the front of his pajamas to thus make connection.

She will be absolutely silent or babble about her housework while his huffing and puffing away. Above all, she will lie perfectly still and never under any circumstances grunt or groan while the act is in progress. As soon as the husband has completed the act, the wise wife will start nagging him about various minor tasks she wishes him to perform on the morrow. Many men obtain a major portion of their sexual satisfaction from the peaceful exhaustion immediately after the act is over. Thus the wife must insure that there is no peace in this period for him to enjoy. Otherwise, he might be encouraged to soon try for more.

One heartening factor for which the wife can be grateful is the fact that the husband's home, school, church, and social environment have been working together all through his life to instill in him a deep sense of guilt in regards to his sexual feelings, so that he comes to the marriage couch apologetically and filled with shame, already half cowed and subdued. The wise wife seizes upon this advantage and relentlessly pursues her goal first to limit, later to annihilate completely her husband's desire for sexual expression.

© 1894 The Madison Institute.

The Good Wife Guide..

dhempe brought this to my attention in his blog.
Makes interesting reading :)

How google helps you meet people

Someone was trying to find a "Sajith M" and of course to do so did a Google Search. And fortunately (for me) Google decided to put me on top and this person ended up contacting me. Of course she almost immediately knew that I am not the "Sajith M" that she is searching for, but for me I ended up with a new friend thanks to Google :-)