Archive for category Agile
CPM Toolkit; Lessons Learned
Posted by DeCare Systems Ireland in Agile, Architecture, Business & Technology, CPM Toolkit, IT, Java, Performance on September 11, 2009
It’s been a year since we first launched the very first edition of the CPM Toolkit into the Java world. We had spent many months developing the Toolkit and were already using it for managing and measuring application performance during the development life cycle for our clients with great success.
One year after launching the CPM Toolkit we have learned some hard lessons.
The Right Development Infrastructure
Posted by brendanlawlor in Agile, CPM Toolkit, Infrastructure, Performance on March 4, 2009
I’ve said it before on this blog – it doesn’t matter how good your process is if your team doesn’t have the Right Stuff. But if your process is compromised, then so are your people. The right process and the right people are each, on their own, necessary but insufficient conditions for developing good software. And while you can find good people, a good process needs to be built from the ground up, starting with infrastructure.
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Drink OSS Responsibly
Posted by brendanlawlor in Agile, Business & Technology, Infrastructure, OSS on December 7, 2008
Here in DSI, we use a lot of great Open Source Software libraries and tools. Choosing the right ones, and aligning them with our development approaches, helps to boost our productivity and quality. The same realisation has spurred just about every other software development company on the planet, and as a result OSS has really brewed up a storm. But now that the initial euphoria has passed, it’s time to stop and take stock of the situation. There’s another storm brewing, and it’s going to do a lot of damage to those who don’t see it coming.
Maven2: The Devil You Know
Posted by brendanlawlor in Agile, Architecture, Infrastructure, Java, OSS on October 17, 2008
Maven is great, isn’t it? You just install it, download your favourite OSS project, type in mvn install and your jar file comes out the other end. Magic. It gets you thinking: Building should always be this easy, right? Your company should be using Maven to manage all its builds. Push-button builds could be just one download away. Right?
Think again.
Continuous Performance Management in Practise
Posted by jaydsi in Agile, AJAX, Architecture, CPM Toolkit, GWT, Java, Performance, Testing on October 8, 2008
Over the last week or so you will have seen a couple of blog entries from my colleagues on how we are implementing Continuous Performance Management in our existing CI process and how CI and Application Performance Management are drawing closer and closer.
It’s time to start putting some meat on the bones of Continuous Performance Management and introduce HelloCPM and show how CPM and be integrated into an existing Java module using ANT as it’s build mechanism. Our CPM implementation can work with ANT or Maven, but for the sake of this introduction, we will focus on ANT.
Changes to our Process I: Continuous Performance Mangement
Posted by brendanlawlor in Agile, CPM Toolkit, Infrastructure, Performance on September 25, 2008
Sigh – a Process Architect’s work is never done (in some cases it’s never even started). The same unyielding forces that bring about change in development technologies are also at play in the processes we use to develop. It has been four years since DSI started to change the way we develop software. While the principles that underpinned those changes have not changed much, if at all, some of the tools we use to support those principles are in need of updating or replacing.
Over the next few weeks and months I’ll be blogging in more detail about the latest set of changes we’re making. Right now, I can give an outline of where we’re going. Some changes are predictable and conform to industry trends. Others are more original and might even set a trend themselves:
- Switching to Maven2 as a build management tool.
- Introducing the concept of Continuous Performance Management into our CI process.
- Moving to Task-Centric development using Mylyn.
- Making the company dashboard richer by integrating our Atlassian tools more deeply
Managing Projects with JIRA and Greenhopper
Posted by brendanlawlor in Agile, Project Management on November 12, 2007
For the last few months I’ve been overseeing a project that comprises between 2 to 4 developers at any one time. I’m not a project manager. We have project and program managers here in DSI who oversee larger teams of 7-20 people each, and they are by necessity abstracted away from the code. I’m an architect and a developer, so I’m most at ease at the centre of a triangle with a phone (or Skype), a coffee machine and an IDE at each apex.
For a project of this size – and arguably bigger ones – a Gantt chart is an unnecessary burden. It’s no coincidence that [tag]Gantt charts[/tag] looks like waterfalls. They are describing dependencies between steps: “You have to do X before you can do Y.” But most software projects don’t need that kind of detail – you can break them down into work items that can be more or less independently allocated. If you are doing [tag]Unit Testing[/tag] and using [tag]Continuous Integration[/tag] then you know that most test and integration activities are performed as part of coding. You can put most of your tasks into a big hopper and as long as you have enough skilled engineers available to take tasks from the hopper, you can work to any reasonable schedule.
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R&D, Innovation and Technical Progress at DSI
Posted by fcronin in .Net, Agile, Business & Technology, Cork, Education, IT, Java, Performance on October 31, 2007
There can be little doubt but that there is increased emphasis placed on Ireland as a [tag]knowledge economy[/tag]. We have a well-established array of research funding agencies , whose aim is to promote the area of [tag]R&D[/tag] within Ireland, by focusing on [tag]industry R&D[/tag] and by linking industry and academia. This is all done to improve the long-term viability and sustainability of the [tag]Irish economy[/tag]. But what can individual firms achieve on their own? What R&D are they doing? And, significantly, who is benefiting from this focus? DSI as an organisation is certainly contributing to this work, much time and effort is devoted to R&D activities. Let us examine this work, and ultimately see who is benefiting from this.
The [tag]open source community[/tag] has long since emerged as a leading example of cooperation and collaboration within the wider [tag]software development[/tag] community. DSI’s long standing commitment to supporting [tag]open source software[/tag] is demonstrated by having a policy for preferential adoption of [tag]OSS[/tag] tools and applications where possible, and by actively contributing to other OSS initiatives. Earlier this year DSI announced that it was invited to contribute to the open source framework [tag]Spring .NET[/tag]. This follows on from DSI’s adoption of Spring as the framework of choice for DSI’s [tag]Java application development[/tag]. Recently DSI released it’s own OS DBPro Bridge application. This is of interest to developers using [tag]Visual Studio[/tag] who are required to work in conjunction with a DBA using [tag]DBPro[/tag]. This is designed as an open source download, users can use it as a plug-in to their own software development projects.
It’s not called ‘Process’ for nothing
Posted by brendanlawlor in Agile, Business & Technology on October 5, 2007
A lot of commentary about Agile, in the wake of its generally accepted success, has been directed at how to package up the [tag]process[/tag] and apply it. Books, frameworks and tools have been sold under the Agile banner. Secret sauce. Essence of Agile. Just add water. The problem with this approach is that processes are implemented by people, and people don’t package up so well. If you want to use the DSI process as it currently runs here, then you’ll need DSI’s people. I’m not just being trite here. As Process Architect I can come up with ideas about what I think will work, but it’s only when our developers or project managers or SCM staff find the ideas useful and start to use them, that an actual process begins. Similarly, if there is no buy-in, or perception of value from new ideas, then they fall into disuse. Until the process theory becomes process practice, all you have is a blueprint. Ever tried driving in to work on one of those?
DSI Sponsors No Fluff Just Stuff eXchange 2007
Posted by nessamalone in Agile, Infrastructure, IT, Java on August 9, 2007
DSI sponsors The [tag] No Fluff Just Stuff [/tag]Software Symposium Series, the premier technical java/agility conference, coming to London in the First European [tag]NFJS eXchange 2007[/tag], August 29th-31st.
The NFJS eXchange 2007 will cover the latest in trends, best practices, and newest developments in [tag]Enterprise Java[/tag], Java/Groovy, ESB/SOA, Ajax, Web Services, [tag]Agile [/tag]Software Development and Architecture. There are 5 concurrent tracks with over 50 sessions to choose from with some of the following topics: Java 6.0, OSGI, Domain Driven Design, Annotations, REST, JRuby, Enterprise Ajax, REST, Groovy, Grails, JPA and many more.
The NFJS eXchange features leading industry experts, who share their practical and real-world experiences.
DSI blog readers will receive £100 off each ticket when booking – just enter the promotion code NFJS-DES623 in the registration form.
More information on the No Fluff Just Stuff eXchange 2007 can be found at: http://www.nfjs-exchange.com/pcd/1154
- Nessa
