Just came across this post about the 5 code metrics you need to watch. I thought it was worth mentioning as I just blogged about this below (including something similar a while back). These are interesting metrics and more high level, but certainly important. I like labeling duplicated code as something important. I think we often forget how much we reuse code and have the same mistakes in many places
Read More »In a previous post, I talked about different types of metrics and how they can apply. These were mostly focused on a system level and provided insight into system complexity from release to release or build after build. Now, let’s take a look at some other metrics and how they can be used effectively with the developers. There are literally hundreds of metrics you can measure, so what is really important? That’s a tough question because it depends on your organization. Perhaps you have some coding standards in place or simply want to measure some
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So awhile back, I was begging for some good statistics on Agile adoption, since at that time, there really wasn’t anything substantial to sink your teeth into. Well, a new report from Forrester came across my desk, and it helped to strengthen what most people believe…that Agile processes have overtaken Waterfall as the development methodology of choice. In this report, which cites information gathered from a Q3 2009 survey of IT professionals, it states that 35% of respondents said that Agile most closely reflected their development process, while waterfall processes came in at 13%.
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As a manager of a small tech writing team in an agile environment (are there any large tech writing teams left out there?), it’s easy to lose myself in how-the-heck-can-we-keep-up-with-myriad-coders-frantically-coding thinking. So when my manager scheduled a meeting to ask what innovations my team has planned for the next release or two, I thought of a few choice responses, such as “Um… how about documenting the new features in time for release? Is that innovative enough for ya?” and “Innovate THIS.” Eventually I calmed down, since he’s the boss, and I have a mortgage.
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The last entry in my Going Agile series will look at the retrospective meeting. The retrospective meeting is held at the end of every sprint/iteration, and it is the time to discuss what went well, and what could be improved in the next sprints. Some people will say the Product Owner should be in attendance, and some believe the PO should not. IMHO, the PO is a part of the team, and should be there…and in our case, I was. We weren’t sure how to solicit input from the team, so we decided that everyone
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As Google Chrome climbs out of obscurity in the browser market and expands into a light-weight but fully functional OS, security seems to have become a top of mind issue over at chromium headquarters. In the Chromium Blog, Chris Evans of Chrome Security announced a cash for bugs initiative, paying between 500 and 1337 USD depending on the severity for any previously undiscovered flaw. I am glad to see Google encouraging the community at large to participate in hardening my current browser of choice. As Chris points out, Mozilla was one of the first to embark on this type of
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Refactoring is a vital component for software developers, helping to prevent their projects from becoming unusable, and unmaintainable spaghetti code. Equally important to some developers, is the notion of refuctoring…check out this tongue in cheek look at Refactoring vs. Refuctoring. Be sure to check out the slide deck at the end. Refuctoring describes the process of making your code unmaintainable by anybody but yourself. I love some of the examples of Refuctoring such as “Pig Latin”, “Treasure Hunt” and my personal favorite “Stating the Bleeding Obvious”: For example: //initialize a to 1 int a=1; Not
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