10 Pines Blog
Since agile processes deliver working software at the end of each iteration (typically around 1-4 weeks) and requirements are prioritized by business value, the organization might choose to release a version of the product as soon as a Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF) has been completed. This way the organization may start to perceive real benefits from the new product far before the development is completed.
10 Jun 2009
object-design code-reuse smalltalk inheritance
When talking about Smalltalk, there is definitively an over use on the possibility to add messages to Object class. It is so easy to do it, that people usually do it just to get something working fast, even if the coding is poor. There are a lot of messages (mainly #isXXX messages) that do not belong to Object and represent a bad design decision. Most of them are implemented there because they are “handy” and easily “reused”. For example #-> or #assert: implemented in Squeak. Definitively not all objects should respond to them.
20 May 2009
One of the first steps a new agile team has to undertake is to choose their iteration length. My general advice is to start with 2 weeks iterations, although I let teams choose the length they feel comfortable with. I believe it is better if the team make their own decisions and learn with the experience. I’m gladly surprised when a team chooses a short iteration length, but sadly that doesn’t happen very frequently. Usually the main argument I’ve heard in favor of longer iterations is that shorter iterations are stressful and there is not enough time to finish all the work.
16 May 2009