My colleague Thomas sent me a very interesting link about attempts to solve Sudoku using test-driven development. The article, somewhat unfairly, pits Ron Jeffries’ explorations of Sudoku using test-driven development against Peter Norvig’s “design driven” approach. I found both attempts lacking. Ho...

This article is a summary of a seminar I had on the topic. If it seems like it’s a continuation of an existing discussion that’s because, to some extent, it is. If you haven’t been discussing exchanging your app server, this article probably isn’t very interesting to you. By putting the application ...

When picking iteration length for an agile project, there are mainly two forces that you have to balance: The rate of learning is proportional with the number of iterations, rather than the length of the project. This means that shorter iterations help you get better faster. But each iteration has s...

If you wonder why this blog has been so quiet lately, it not (just) that I’m getting lazier. Together with several of my colleagues at Steria Norway, I’ve started up a blog at http://sterkblanding.no. “Sterk blanding” is Norwegian for “potent mix”, and we hope that as representatives for several dis...

I’ve pair programmed the Java EE spike kata in Eclipse with a number of people, I’ve found that a number of keyboard short cuts and preference settings recur as useful new information. I’ve compiled the most popular ones in this article. The article is subject to change, but I won’t change the numbe...

As it turns out, one of the least used practices of agile development is also one of the most powerful. Up into the start of last year, I only worked sporadically with pair programming. Last year, I was lucky enough to be part of a team that used pair programming all the time. Since I’ve experienced...

After seeing some of the great examples of coders working on practiced problems on KataCasts, I decided to try make my own. I am not happy with the pacing of the video. I’m about a minute too early relative to the music. But I thought I’d post the video here, to see what you all think. Comments are ...

Lately, I’ve been working on two code katas, that is, programming exercises that I repeat until the motions are secure in my muscle memory. The katas I’ve chosen are: Java EE Spike: An application that stores People with names to a database and lets me search for them. I’ve repeated this pair progra...

For å bli bedre må man trene. For å bli bedre med avanserte ting, må man forstå de grunnleggende tingene bra. For å vite hvorfor man bruker avanserte verktøy, må man prøve å jobbe uten dem. Derfor har jeg de siste ukene trent mange ganger på å lage en veldig enkel webapplikasjon i Java. For hele app...

En kollega spurte i dag om mine topp tips når det gjelder databaserefactorings. Her var mitt svar: Ha en organisert struktur med at man gjennomfører navngitte migreringer (a la Ruby-on-Rails sine migrations eller dbdeploy). Typisk er det vanlig og velfungerende å navngi scripts med løpenummer (001, ...

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how easy it is to lose sight of the goal of the project and instead focus on whatever means someone first thought was a good starting point when the project was first conceived of. And I think it all comes down to words. The first years I was working in this bus...

At ØreDev I ran into Lasse Koskela. We started talking about estimation techniques, and we both felt that the dominant estimation technique of relative estimation with planning poker has been unchallenged for a very long time. We found ourselves wondering what the next big idea about estimation will...

Just three weeks ago, I was asked to step in for Ted Neward to give a tutorial at Øredev on Effective Enterprise Java. As I did not have time to get the tutorial materials printed, I present them here on the web for the participants and others. 1. Effect Enterprise Java architecture in 2009 Since th...

When I write Java-projects that produce web pages, I test on several levels. First, I use Jetty and WebDriver to test the result via http. (WebDriver even lets me test JavaScript!) But for speed and agility, unit-level tests beat even the fastest integration level tests. Unit tests run much much fas...

I’m working on a collection of patterns for early releases with Niklas Bjørnerstedt. Here are some of my thoughts based on this work. In a few different projects, I’ve noticed that the idea of “where are we going” seems to go though a familiar pattern: “The old system is the requirement document, ju...

This Norwegian language article introduces a short two-page guide I’ve written to explain Scrum to people who’ve only just heard of it. I samarbeid med våre dyktige redaksjonelle medarbeidere på Steria, har jeg forfattet en “3 minutters guide” til Scrum. Denne tar for seg spørsmålene som “hva er ege...

Every Scrum-team should use their taskboard to support their particular way of working. I’d like to share the way we use our taskboard at my current project for your inspiration. [caption id=“attachment_447” width=“300” caption=“Colored ink, paper and makers support team process”][/caption] When I s...

The generation that has been growing up was raised in a world that was radically different from the world we live in now. There is a generational shift, and we know that what we were taught is no longer true: [caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“200” caption=“What does your brain look like?”][/c...

What will the daily experience of software development look like, say, five years from now? Have our current processes reached their peak, or will the world continue to change? Alan Kay said “the easiest way to predict the future is to invent it.” Here are some ideas of the future I want to invent: ...

It’s not secret that Apple likes to control their platform tightly. As long as their dictatorship is a benevolent one, whether you find this objectionable or not is a rather uninteresting question. But lately, the question seems to be less and less academic: Google’s Voice Application for the iPhone...

This Norwegian language post talks a little about a quick intro to Scrum that I wrote for my employer Jeg har forfattet en “3-minutters guide” til Scrum. Dette er en to siders lettlest artikkel som publiserer via min arbeidsgiver Steria. Denne har som mål å være tilgjengelig både for tekniske og ikk...

In my current project, we use Flex as the user interface framework of choice. Flex has some nice features, but it takes a long time to build changes and start up, so it takes a while to validate our changes. Yesterday, we found a problem with one our UI components, and used JUnit to hunt down the sa...

Why do all societies we know of practice some form of religion? Either religion must be “true”, or there must be some sort of natural explanation for this universal phenomenon. [caption id=“attachment_403” align=“alignright” width=“161” caption=“Breaking the Spell”][/caption] “Breaking the Spell” by...

[caption id=“attachment_394” align=“alignright” width=“300” caption=“Summer is starting”][/caption] “Predictably Irrational” is a perfect book for lazy summe...

After receiving request to revive my book reviews, I’ve decided to blog about books I read again. If a known terrorist in police custody knew the whereabouts of a ticking bomb about to explode in a large city, would the use of torture be acceptable? Would it be helpful? I stumbled across Alfred McCo...

I thought it was about time I wrote about topics where I’m an amateur. This time: Experimental philosophy. As a computer programmer, I often entertain myself with writing computer programs. Last Easter I stayed up a few nights playing with an insignificant, but entertaining program. During a discuss...

Here’s a neat trick if you want set an object in a specific state in a unit test, but you don’t want to violate encapsulation: @Test public void withdrawShouldReduceBalance() { Account account = new Account() {{ super.balance = 100; }}; account.withdraw(10); assertEquals(90, account.getBalance()); }...

The Agency for Public Management and eGovernment in Norway is currently developing guidelines for IT-projects within the Norwegian governmental sector. The Norwegian Computing Association hosted a presentation and discussion about this work yesterday. I was privileged enough to summarize the comment...

In this third podcast in the Oslo Developer Conversation series, I talk with Linda Rising about fearless change. We discuss the how to inspire an organization to change and touch on how developers are, at the end of the day, just another mammal. See the (English language) podcast at ProgramUtvikling...

This is a Norwegian language copy of an article I published with Niklas Bjørnerstedt in the Norwegian computing magazine ComputerWorld Studier som utgir seg for å være vitenskapelig utført viser seg stadig å ikke tåle nærmere granskning. Kommersielle tenkesmier tar mange snarveier i kampen om å få f...