Agile Artisans

70,000 Lines of Code in 4 Routines. Awesome!

Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

It's good to read a story like this every now and again just to remind yourself how bad it is in some places.

I'm not sure how to file this... humor? Misc? Anti-agile? I'll go with humor.

Andy Hunt at AgileRTP tonight

Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Just a quick reminder, if you're in the RTP, NC area, come join us tonight and hear Andy Hunt.

We're also raffling off a pass to the Research Triangle Software Symposium, the local incarnation of the popular NFJS Java conference tour.

More details are on the meetup page

Rumor has it that Andy might exercise the speaker's privilege to change the topic to the future of Agile. See you tonight.

El Cormino

Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

What happens when a Corvette and an El Camino have a baby?

The El Cormino, of course!

Cobertura Eclipse Plugin: Make Some Cash

Mon, 05 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Cobertura has an Eclipse plugin, but it's suffering from neglect. So I'm putting a small bounty on it. $250 to the person who gets it back up and running.

My requirements for the plugin?

-Runs Cobertura from within Eclipse
-Highlights your tested and untested source code
-It'd have to run to one of the core committer's satisfaction. When they're happy, I'll mail you a check. It's not a ton of money, but it's a few dollars.

There you go... there's a file in the build (eclipse-plugin.zip) that'd make a fine starting point.

Given that so many people at are Java One this week, it might be a bad time to announce this... on the other hand, with so many people busy, it might be ~your~ chance to get a head start. :)

New Version of Virtual Box Available

Sun, 04 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Virtual Box competes with VMWare and Parallels, but it's open source. It's a very decent virtualization product. Sun bought them a few months ago, and this is the first major release since then.

This blog entry (Sun xVM VirtualBox 1.60 Just Released for Ubuntu Hardy Heron and other Os's!) does a good job of summing up the new release.

Visit the VirtualBox homepage for more info.

Cool Scala Story

Sat, 03 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

This is a nice story about how a developer sold management on a Scala solution, put it in production, and handed off the maintenance to other developers.

For All You Know, It's Just Another Java Library

When you wanted to follow the advice of the Pragmatic Programmers and learn a language every year, you had to do it at home. You couldn't bring your new learning language into work.

Today it's a different. You can learn dozens of different languages and run them on top of the JVM or MS' CLR.

Also, if you're going to learn a new language, make sure it's hard enough to hurt. If you know Java, pick something very different, like Erlang or Scala. Learn to think in a new way.

How Long Does It Take to Write Tests?

Thu, 01 May 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I frequently hear the question at conferences... sure, we all know we should write tests, but it's like exercise. I know I should, but I don't. It would take too much time.

Recently I've been telling people that it takes only 10% of their time to create automated tests. And then I tell them about this blog entry. I decided to link to it so it'd be easier to find.

Automated Testing -- It's the thought that counts

At 6th Sense Analytics, we collect process metrics, so this is just an example of the type of insight we can pull out. After the tests were created, we knew exactly how much time was required.

Free NFJS Pass at Agile RTP

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I wanted to let everyone know that we'll be giving away a free pass to Research Triangle Software Symposium. The very popular No Fluff Just Stuff traveling software conference will be in your backyard if you're in North Carolina.

It's primarily a Java conference, but we've got a strong Agile track as well. And there are classes in other topics, like Scala, Technical Debt and more.

I'm a bit biased... I'm one of the speakers. :) But I really like the conference and the people it draws. It's a great chance to get a quick introduction to a broad collection of topics and network with a great national and local crowd.

And if you don't win the free pass, you could always try Ward Cunningham, Dave Thomas, Venkat, and Neal Ford, to name a few) that I decided to try it out... I like it. A lot.

Now that I can "twit" from my iPhone, I don't have to use desktop time to update or track other people's streams. I can post or read at a stop light or in an airport.

Also, the iPhone has a killer app called Twinkle that shows me Twitter feeds based on my location. There's something compelling to me about being able to see feeds within 1-2-5-10-100 miles from my current location. And it's amazing how many people there are "Twitting" on Twinkle within 2 miles of my house.

(In order to use Twinkle, you'll need to "jailbreak" your iPhone. You'll find a nice GUI on the ZiPhone page. It's a

Java 6 Finally Makes it to the Mac... Man, I Love Ruby

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 +0000

And Java 6 arrives with a bit of controversy.

Ted rants about the lack of a 32 bit version in Why, Apple, Why?

In a nutshell, if your Mac has a Core Duo CPU, you're running 32 bit. You must have a Core Duo 2. (see this Wikipedia entry). Oh, you must have Leopard (10.5.2) as well.

Here's a great post that shows you how to make 1.6 your default Java. The Apple installer doesn't do that... apparently they don't trust the version enough to be the default Java on your box. Not inspiring confidence with that decision...

Man, I really love Ruby.