Skip to main content

Accidental Simplicity

Blog

Accidental Simplicity

Thoughts about agile software development, software configuration management, and the intersection between them.

Patterns and The Storytelling Animal
Blog Post
by Steve Berczuk
Mar 18 2012 - 10:00am
I had the good fortune to be involved in the early days of the Software Patterns.  In brief, patterns are about capturing solutions that people have developed organically over time, which have proven to be the best ones for the context at hand. What's interesting about patterns to those who are used to more academic approaches to learning about software,  is that a good pattern isn't...
Read Moreshare
Have the Orders Changed?
Blog Post
by Steve Berczuk
Mar 10 2012 - 10:00am
One of the great things about being a parent is that you have an excuse to re-read some classic books.
Read Moreshare
Paper v Electronic Dashboards: Goals and Values
Blog Post
by Steve Berczuk
| Comments: (2)
Mar 4 2012 - 4:00pm
It's almost a matter of dogma that, for agile teams, low tech project tracking tools and artifacts are superior to electronic ones. The usual reason you might hear for preferring a physical task board to an electronic issue system are are that a physical task board is more visible and encourages communication and collaboration. I appreciate this, and have seen it, but I've also seen...
Read Moreshare
Kanban
Blog Post
by Steve Berczuk
| Comments: (2)
Feb 26 2012 - 12:30pm
I've worked with Scrum for a while, having gotten my CSM certification in 2005, and I've spent time both before and after that trying to learn what I could about Scrum, agile, and Lean, both in the context of software and out side of it. After absorbing bits of information on Kanban informally, I decided that to was time to read a book on it.
Read Moreshare
Do we care whether it's Software Engineering or Craft?
Blog Post
by Steve Berczuk
| Comments: (1)
Jan 23 2012 - 4:00am
Much like a tenet of agile software development is that "planning is more important than the plan," there are some questions about software development that are useful to explore, even if you can't suggest a good answer. One of these these is whether what we, as software developers do, is (or can be) engineering.
Read Moreshare
Agility (and Learning Opportunities) Everywhere
Blog Post
by Steve Berczuk
| Comments: (3)
Jan 14 2012 - 1:00pm
People often ask "can I apply agile methods to something other than software development?" Since the basic appeal of agile methods is to acknowledge uncertainty by planning in increments, evaluating where you are relative to the plan and other forces, and planning the next increment, it seems like there should be no obstacle to following an agile approach for any project. The lurking question...
Read Moreshare
Questioning before Answering
Blog Post
by Steve Berczuk
Dec 8 2011 - 9:00am
The other day I came across a short video in which a parent is faced with answering a unexpected question posed by her young child. I found this video amusing because, being the parent of a kindergartener, I expect to be faced with many awkward moments like this in the future. I also found it an interesting metaphor for software requirements gathering.
Read Moreshare
SCM Tool as Collaboration Tool
Blog Post
by Steve Berczuk
Dec 5 2011 - 7:00am
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to give a virtual talk at a product launch for an SCM Tool vendor.   The theme of the talk was basic branching strategies, and preparing for the talk led me to reflect on what  Brad and I wrote in the SCM Patterns Book. This post is based on those thoughts.
Read Moreshare
Definitions
Blog Post
by Steve Berczuk
Nov 22 2011 - 6:30am
The other day a colleague use the phrase open interval to refer to time periods that included their endpoints. This didn't sound like the definition that I'd learned in analysis class, which I will admit was not my favorite subject in grad school, so I searched for a definition and found:
Read Moreshare
Refactoring
Blog Post
by Steve Berczuk
Nov 20 2011 - 8:00am
Frank Buschmann wrote a 2-part article in the July/August and September/October issues of IEEE Software that covered an important aspect of software development: refactoring. Yes,  you'll hear the word "refactoring" spoken often in any development team, but most developers rarely discuss what refactoring is, and whether they are refactoring or doing something else, like "reengineering" or...
Read Moreshare
Site Contents
Back To Top