As I write this, I’m sitting at the Dallas airport, suffering through a 3 hour delay on my flight to Washington D.C. to present at our 2nd Agile in Action Roadshow with our friends from Electric Cloud, Perforce, and VersionOne. As I have the time, I’ve been reflecting on my time here in Dallas, and the phrase “Everything is big in Texas” is bang on. Before I get to that though, I have to say that I do love Dallas…I’m not totally sure, but I truly believe I’m treated a little more special because of my last name (which I casually mention whenever I get the chance). Nothing like having the same surname as a famous coach from the Dallas Cowboys!

Okay, so why do I think the Everything is big in Texas is accurate. For starters, my big delay is due to a big thunderstorm. My rental car preference is a Compact car, and what do I get? A Yukon…I’m not sure what is bigger, this vehicle, or the Canadian Territory with the same name.

I saw big hair, big hats, big rings, big belt buckles, big omelets, big waffles, and big enchiladas. What I also saw was a big enthusiasm for Agile development. We had a great turnout that was fully engaged from the instant the roadshow began, asking questions wanting to know more, sharing their experiences with others, visiting with the vendors and not leaving until they got the information they needed. I wrote a few weeks ago about Agile adoption and where it currently was, and participating in this event, and speaking with the attendees, it allowed me to gain some additional data points that only strengthened my beliefs on this…Agile is definitely growing, and in all industries. As I said before, I truly believe almost all organizations have some Agile developments teams.

Hopefully the enthusiasm I encountered in Dallas will follow us to Washington D.C. And I’m thinking I may want to introduce myself as Todd Ovechkin…

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%. I would even argue that iterative development could possibly be included in the Agile bucket, not because it is full-fledged Agile, but it is a baby-step in Agile’s direction. Perhaps I’m stretching things there…

Secondly, the data supports the fact that people are adopting the aspects of Agile that work for them and there’s no monolithic Agile implementation approach, something that is consistent with the many Agile teams I’ve spoken to over the last 3 ½ years or so. I’d be curious to know how many teams out there are doing , say, Scrum “by the book”…if there is such a thing.

Finally, the other thing that the report hinted at, that I have seen firsthand, is that while most organizations are not completely Agile today, they almost all have some groups that are. I honestly believe that the percentage of organizations that have small pockets of groups doing Agile development is very high…perhaps in the 80s or 90s. I don’t have any hard data on this point, this is more of a gut-feel, but I would be interested to hear from our readers as to what they think.

We are starting to see a large amount of Android phones such as the Droid and Xperia X10 (see a review here) and the (soon-to-be-released) first Google phone, Nexus One. With this, expect the number of apps to increase significantly.

Droid vs. iPhone

So with the increased number of apps, do these developers have the right tools to find and fix bugs? Take a look at the leader of phone applications-iPhone. There have been several posts (here and here) that recommend using the Clang static analyzer. Apple has taken it one step further, apparently rejecting iPhone apps that access private APIs. But Clang won’t help you with Java apps.

So what do the Android developers have? Android is just Java, so there are lots of tools, right? Certainly there are static analysis tools, profilers, unit testing tools and many more. But are these tools really taking into account the Android specifics?

Let’s take an example of a resource leak. Resources such as streams, connections and graphic objects must be explicitly closed; otherwise, you run the risk of throwing exceptions depending on the open resource.




For example:

1 static final String propertyFile = "my_config.ini";
2
3 static String getProperyFromConfigFile(String name)throws IOException {
4    Properties prop = new Properties();
5    FileInputStream st = new FileInputStream(propertyFile);
6    prop.load(st);
7    return prop.getProperty(name);
8 }

Here, a resource leak should be identified since line 5 opens up a FileInputStream, but is never closed before exiting the method. Now, this is all well and good and valuable to be found in any Android specific code, but what happens if I’m using built-in classes from the Android SDK?

For example:

1 public boolean onKeyDown(final int keyCode, final KeyEvent event) {
2    if (keyCode == KeyEvent.KEYCODE_DPAD_CENTER) {
3          final MediaPlayer player = MediaPlayer.create(this, ringtoneUri);
4          player.start();
5    }
6    return super.onKeyDown(keyCode, event);
7 }

Here, you have a situation where a MediaPlayer resource is created at line 3, but never closed on exit. Without the knowledge that MediaPlayer is a resource that should be closed, you will miss this type of issue. This extends to many resources and different issues. You can also have Android-specific null pointer exceptions and use of free issues.

Let me know if you’re doing Android development. I want to hear what you are doing to find these kinds of bugs.

Thought I would take a moment to share with you my experience at this year’s IP ESC show in Grenoble, France. First off, Grenoble is beautiful sitting at the foot of the French Alps. If you get the chance, go!

Back to the show. This is typically the IP Show, but this year is the first that ESC has been added to the agenda. I don’t think it helped attendance-wise. From what I can tell, there are maybe 200-250 attendees in total. I spent the last couple of days sharing booth duty with our friends from Emenda, France. Today, I spoke about how source code analysis fits into Agile development teams. I had about 15 attendees, which by all accounts was a good turnout.

I was able to cram about 40 minutes of material into 20-minute slot, and even had time left over to answer a few questions. Unfortunately, this show did not allow Exhibitors to attend any of the sessions. Too bad really, I was hoping to attend a few of them.

Next week, I am off to a similar show in Stuttgart, Germany, where I will have more time to present. Check back here next week for a recap of that event.

Next week I’m heading out to the Software Assurance Forum (use SOF96945 for the conference code) in Washington D.C. (well, actually Arlington, Virginia, but D.C. sounds more glamorous). If you’re not familiar with what the SWA is, in a nutshell, its key objective is to encourage software developers to raise overall software quality and security from the start, rather than relying on applying patches to systems after vulnerabilities are discovered.

Anyways, while I’m there, I’ll be taking part in 2 speaking opportunities. The first will be as part of a 6 person panel discussion entitled “Understanding Technology Stakeholders: Their Progress and Challenges” (10:30 – 12:00 on Wednesday). The panel is made up of stakeholders from varying disciplines such as industry, academia, standards, and government. A good well rounded panel should provide for an interesting and entertaining hour and a half.

My second session (Friday at 2:20) will see me fly solo as I discuss our (Klocwork’s) experiences and observations as they relate to SATE. I’m not given much time, so I’ll be revving up the motor mouth to make sure I get our points across. I have a sneaking suspicion I just *may* go a little OT.

So, is anyone out there also going to this event? If so, drop me a line either by email (todd.landry@klocwork.com), or Twitter (@todd_landry) and perhaps we can get together to chat. Look for my next blog next Thursday, as I will recap the panel discussion and the other sessions I attend at this event.

I have always loved “I’m gonna write me a new minivan”  from Scott Adams.  To me, it never gets old.  Originally published in 1998, the theme that applied then still does today: driving 100% of defects or bugs out of the code-base is a laudable goal, but is it really the right one?   I would have to argue no.  There’s no silver bullet out there that will find all software defects and solve issues automagically, and until there is, software development will continue to struggle with prioritization.  Unfortunately, we live in a world of finite resources and constantly evolving demands, but we can always dream about being Wally for a little while.

Overall a good show at ESC.  Always well run and put together.  In terms of vendors we had some great discussions especially with Electric Cloud.  We managed to see a great demo of ElectricInsight.

ElectricInsight is very visual giving you an incredible view of the structure of a software build.  Not only a tool to help you visualize the impact of adding nodes to ElectricAccelerator cluster but it helps with diagnosing your build problems in seconds.  Really cool dependency analysis with a click of a button.

In the end there is no doubt the economy has taken its toll on ESC Boston 2009.  By far one of the worst turn outs for the exhibit show floor.  But one thing I can take away from this, I’m the Wii Jousting champ!

Succinctly communicating what Klocwork does and how it helps improve productivity during code reviews, integration builds, and of course for developers is always a challenge. We’ve tried to capture this visually with this simple SDLC image, and of course we always talk about the importance of finding bugs early.

Then somebody else comes along and makes the point in a way you never thought of… here’s a funny that’s been going around for some time, but I figured it’s worth passing along to the Kloctalk readers.

Off to Agile 2009 next week in Chicago where Klocwork will be both attending and exhibiting at the conference. We’ll blog throughout the week to keep people updated and let you know the latest. There are a few sessions in particular that we’ll be sure to report on and let readers know anything useful we learned (or not):

• Adopting Agile in an FDA Regulated Environment
• Java and Ruby Tools for Code Quality
• Effective Code Reviews in Agile Teams
• Zen and the Art of Software Quality
• Scrum and CMMI – from Good to Great

Be sure to check back often!

There I have said it. As a marketer, I am disappointed in my peers in their attempts to get their message in the hands of their audience.  Over the past couple of weeks, I have attended a few webinars from other organizations selling software development tools that were truly atrocious.  So here are a few pointers for my few marketers on webinars:

• Stop talking down to the audience – treating your prospects as unintelligent blobs is not the way to connect or be heard. These people are senior developers and engineering managers of Fortune 500 companies not kids coming out of school. Yes, there is a need to bring everyone up to speed and get them to the same knowledge level but that can be done in the first few minutes; don’t do it throughout the presentation.

• Slideware hell:
  • Have a congruent theme – pick one major point and each and every slide in the rest of the presentation should support that theme. Don’t over complicate it.
  • Don’t read your slides – I can read too;  I don’t need you to do that.  I need you to tell me why your point is important so that I pay attention and expand into examples and facts that prove your point.
  • Don’t cram every possible benefit on to a slide – this goes with the previous point – at most 4 bullet points – highlight what is important and use your oratory skills to expand
  • Balance your text with meaningful visuals – I am going to scan your slide in 10 seconds and then turn my brain off. So to keep my attention, give me a visual containing information not just data and each slide needs to tell me something new

• Don’t try to garner respect, earn it. Don’t tell me in your previous life you shared their pain; it comes off as false. Product Managers, you especially  have been the ones at fault for this one.  I am not attending to hear about you. I have a problem; I am looking for a solution.

• Respect their time: webinars are a great vehicle to communicate with an audience but don’t overdo it.  I personally don’t sign up to webinars that last an hour.  I am not willing to give you that much of my time and I would hazard to say neither does most of the potential audience.  Check your abandonment or engagement rates.

Enough ranting and berating of my fellow marketers but together we have to get better at what we do.