November 7th, 2007
I’m participating in a “Software Best Practices” seminar in Albany tomorrow (click here for details on future venues of this seminar, hosted by IT Metrics & Productivity Institute — including Ft. Lauderdale and Austin next week), and I’ll be giving a talk on the “Top Ten Software Engineering Ideas.”
To download the 20.5-megabyte PDF of the […]
October 11th, 2007
I’ll be giving a presentation on the “top 10 software engineering concepts” at a software best-practices seminar in Detroit today; for more details about this and future seminars (including, for example, Jacksonville next week, and Austin next month), click here.
If you’d like to download a 15.9-megabyte PDF of the one-page mind-map for the presentation, […]
February 25th, 2007
Years ago, there were stories about a software bug that caused F-16 fighter jets to flip upside down when they crossed the equator. When you first hear such a story, it’s bound to make you laugh; but I suspect that the fighter pilot didn’t think it was very funny. I haven’t been able to track […]
January 31st, 2007
What would you say if your manager suddenly confronted you and said, “Quick! Tell me the three most important things that our software industry needs to do in order to bring about a substantial improvement in software quality! Just three things!“? Of course, if you don’t work in the software field, you wouldn’t know what […]
January 18th, 2007
I didn’t think I’d have a chance to get started reading and reviewing Dreaming in Code until next week, when I embark upon a 14-hour flight to Tokyo (click here to see an amazing HDR, or “high dynamic range,” photo of Tokyo, and be sure to click on the full-size image; thanks, BoingBoing!) But the […]
November 19th, 2006
A couple weeks ago, I posted a blog article entitled “Why Hasn’t Software Development Gotten Any Better?” Hank Heath and Moshe Gotesman posted some thoughtful comments on the blog, which I encourage you to read; and I’ve also gotten some interesting offline comments sent via email. For example, a long-time colleague, Becky Winant, wrote to […]
October 17th, 2006
I had the good fortune to be invited to participate in Construx’s Executive Summit conference in Seattle this week, and have just finished the first day of the conference. The highlight of the first day was the opening keynote presentation by Steve McConnell, founder of the firm, and author of a number of excellent books […]
October 4th, 2006
Yesterday, I wrote about a Computerworld article, entitled “The Ten Commandments of Project Management,” which proposed a number of “commandments” to ensure project management success. I thought it was a good start, but I’ve got an alternative list. Here it is:
Don’t fail to identify the key “players” who will ultimately declare “success” or “failure” […]
July 9th, 2006
Having just returned from Amsterdam yesterday, I’ve got a pile of mail and chores that I should be working on. But I wanted to record my impressions of Kevin Kelly’s keynote presentation at the “Next Web” conference while my memories are still somewhat fresh. Bottom line: if you’ve been feeling jaded, skeptical, or even cynical […]
June 20th, 2006
Of the professional journals that I force myself to read each month, IEEE Software and IEEE Computer are usually the most relevant and interesting. In the June 2006 issue of IEEE Computer, I found a short, but very practical article by Gerard Holzmann entitled “The Power of 10: Rules for Developing Safety-Critical Code.” The entire […]
