Pomp & Surkanstance: software

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13 August 2012

The Future For Java Has Never Been Brighter

In this episode of the TPM podcast show Gennaro Marrazzo, a Technical Development Engineer, explains how the fragmentation of the Java platform is not a weakness, but actually one of its greatest strengths. There are flavours of Java available for everything from front-end UIs to real-time computing and mobile devices. Gennaro sees no clouds in Java’s future now that Oracle has acquired it. After all, it is in Oracle’s interest to keep Java as a vibrant development environment.

The emergence of new platforms like Python and Ruby may erode some of the niches where Java had previously flourished but Gennero believes that Java’s best days are still ahead.

Download the sound(right click and save as link) : Download

You can find all the Optimistic Bear shows here: Software

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03 August 2012

Visual Studio Takes The “Integration” Of Ides Further Than Ever

In this episode of the TPM podcast show Ryan Berry, an Application Development Manager, explains how the breadth of integration in Microsoft’s Visual Studio IDE greatly simplifies the life of developers and increases productivity. When using Visual Studio Ryan can automatically file bugs, see notes from other developers, and even publish his apps to the cloud. Visual Studio features like Intellisense and XAML UI editing (new in VS 2012) take the pain out of getting things right the first time and reduce the amount of context switching developers have to go through when using lots of different tools.

Ryan is particularly happy to use Visual Studio 2012 with its closer integration with Team Foundation Server and Azure. He can easily manage his apps through the entire life-cycle, letting TFS publish his app for testing, integration with other developers and then to the Azure cloud. Ryan does point out that all this IDE automation comes at a cost. He tells about one company that ran into trouble building an app that used the .NET Entity Framework rich text field for storing pictures. The app choked under heavy load with lots of pictures loaded. The simplicity of the VS tools made it easy to walk into a problem like this, without understanding what was actually happening under the covers.

15 May 2012

Is Vendor Lock-in Unavoidable When Building An App?

In our continuing series of SEP group Practical Software podcast interviews, Bishop Greg, an expert in Model Driven software projects at Inegranova, talks about how organizations building their own internal applications are increasingly finding themselves locked into particular vendors and technology stacks similar to the ‘80s and ‘90s when people were building applications on custom systems from companies like DEC and IBM. In Greg’s experience these lock-ins can be avoided by working at high level models which can be easily transposed onto varying underlying technology stacks without too much trouble. One example Greg gives is a customer of his who swiftly moved a custom app to support Web Sphere and DB2.

Maybe every organization has to bite the bullet and take a dependency on specific technologies at some point. For example, trying to build a cross-platform mobile app can sometimes wind up with software that is mediocre, not really taking advantage of any of the key features on individual mobile devices.

How do you think technology lock-in should be avoided?

13 March 2012

Outsourcing Bad Idea No 16: A Gun To The Head.

In this Practical Software show, SEP group member Venkatesh Potdar, a Project Manager at Adtran, talks about how important it is to build a partnership with outsourcing teams. He points out that you can’t just throw things over the wall and expect success. This kind of collaboration requires trust and respect and simply won’t work with a gun to the head mentality, treating the outsource team like laborers to whom you can just issue demands.

Venkatesh also explains why it is sometimes better to just go the whole way to actually set up a permanent office abroad to hire your off-shore team as direct employees. If you are going to be making a long term commitment to a team that is sufficiently large anyway, then why not just bring them on as actual members of your company?

09 December 2011

Successful Outsourcing Begins With A Contract

In this Practical Software show, SEP group member Frank Vogelezang, Manager Pricing Office at Ordina, explains how contracts are the key to successful outsourcing. If you don’t define what is being measured for success, or what the expectations are, then you are only asking for trouble with misunderstandings. Where one person might determine an “incident” to be changing a password another might not.

Contracts can also be terrific places to create incentives to deliver great quality or beat schedules, by offering bonuses and other inducements. For example, in maintenance agreements it can be a great idea to pay bonuses for smaller number of over-all incidents rather than pay on a per-incident basis. If developers are getting paid for fewer hours worked, it is in their interests to build things right the first time and to take steps to reduce the number of support issues that could arise.

30 November 2011

If At First You Don’t Succeed With Outsourcing…

In this Practical Software show, SEP group member Mike Anthony, Co-Founder & Advisor at IQity Solutions, explains how his first attempts at outsourcing failed. Attempts to find off-shore teams to handle all of his development needs led only to disappointment. However, in the end Mike has made outsourcing work by adopting a distributed model, which requires keeping core engineering talent locally. Having a local team makes it easier to have customer interactions and avoid issues with giving over critical intellectual property to third parties.

Mike keeps communication problems are kept at a minimum through the use of daily scrum sessions with both local and off-shore engineers. Short release cycles of 2 weeks make it easy to make sure things stay in alignment.

25 November 2011

If You Have A Well-defined Box, Off-shore It

In this Practical Software show, SEP group member Keith Laidlaw, the CTO with GamingVC, explains how the most successful off-shoring projects he’s worked on involve products with well-defined requirements that are fairly static. Products which are dynamic, with constantly shifting requirements are difficult to manage with off-shore teams. Keith also explains how there are different types of off-shoring work-models which work better for varying development models. In one cases Keith brought the entire off-shore team on-shore for the duration of the project.

Unfortunately, Keith talks about how the whole outsourcing is changing as the costs rise. He is seeing some quotes for projects that are the same as hiring staff domestically. This has implications for the future of off-shoring altogether.

24 November 2011

The Last Thing You Want For A Successful Software Project Is To Write Code.

In this Practical Software show, SEP group member Marten van der Tempel, a consulting partner with 4ton, shares the secrets he has devised to lead successful software outsourcing projects. It all starts with and objective and in-depth specifications, according to Marten, followed by a deep understanding of the customer. It not good enough to just know that you are writing software for accounts, but it is also critical to know WHY accountants need this software.

When it comes to specifications, being specific and detailed is important if you want a successful outsourcing experience. Marten also explains how visualizations or wire-frames, of exactly what the user interface should look like are even more useful than text specifications. Communication with people who may not speak your native language is hard enough and distance only makes things worse. Use as many screen mock-ups, wire-frames, and visualizations as you can. The worst thing you can do on any software project is to start writing code before the goals, end-users, and specifications are fully understood.

22 November 2011

The Golden Rule Of Outsourcing - A Little Respect Goes A Long Ways

In this conversation - Raul Suarez - Systems Consultant at Manulife Financial explains how the key to managing successful off-shore projects lies in building relationships and treating the off-shore team with respect. Treat off-shore staff the same way you would behave to people in your own office. This applies to both communication and simple courtesy. Don't keep the off-shore people in the dark with problems you are facing and make sure to time some meetings at times that work best off-shore. The off-shore developers aren't just faceless coding automotons, but real people. Get to know them!

It also helps to have a defined process and lines of informal and informal communication.

Can Time Zone Differences Actually Be An Outsourcing Advantage?

In this Practical Software show, SEP group member Brian Borg (the owner and lead QA engineer at OnPath testing mentions that the time-difference of off-shore teams can actually be an advantage in product development, allowing for around the clock work and faster turn-arounds.

Brian also points out that organizations have to really embrace it and change how they work, and communicate, to make outsourcing successful. If you aren’t willing to have lots meetings at odd hours and communicate like mad via electronic mediums then most likely your off-shore project will fail.

I would like to thank our SEP Practical Software show guest host volunteer, Sanjeev Nambudiri, who has been interviewing group members for these podcast shows, allowing us all to share our experiences with one another.

16 November 2011

Does A Lack Of Local Talent Make Off-shore Outsourcing A Necessity?

In this Practical Software show, SEP group member Wei Tang, Engineering Manager at Teradata, talks about his experiences bring up off-shore teams. Like other SEP members we have spoken with Wei points out that communication is paramount. He also discusses strategies for overcoming language difficulties. Wei also points out that cost savings is not the only reason for off-shoring work anymore. According to Wei, outsourcing can be a critical part of a company’s effort to get the best talent around the world. Does this mean that the pool of local talent is insufficient?

14 November 2011

Outsourcing Jujitsu –off-shore Teams Can Transfer Knowledge To You!

In this Practical Software show, SEP group member David Read, CTO at Blue Slate Solutions, talks about how to make outsourcing work. He points out that it takes longer than most people think to integrate new individuals into your team and projects. Communication is certainly critical, but the management methodology actually doesn’t matter that much. David suggests picking the best methodology for your culture since they all can work well with outsourcing.

David does raise a very interesting non-traditional way of using outsourcing as a means to acquire skills in your own team. There is such a wealth of trained talent abroad these days that it is often possible to find people who have deep experience in areas where your business wants to grow. You can hire these people as a means of doing a reverse knowledge transfer, having them educate your team in new technologies or skills.

08 November 2011

Does Successful Outsourcing Require The Death Of A Private Life?

In this Practical Software show, SEP group member David Murch, Director of Engineering at Corporate Safe Specialists, talks about his experiences with successful outsourcing projects. David has a lot of great advice on how good outsourcing efforts require a culture compatible with such activity, and offers tips on how to build just such a culture. This does raise the question as to whether one of the cultural traits organizations need to adopt is the abolishment of personal lives, and accepting an environment where everyone needs to be available 24/7 to answer questions from their colleagues around the world 24/7?

Can Outsourcing Work If The Client Has No Core Engineering Expertise?

In this Practical Software show, SEP group member Alexander Lesnevsky, Senior project manager at NAVIS, talks about his experience both as a vendor providing outsourcing services and being a customer of outsource services himself. Having a detailed vision, or specifications, for the desired work is important but it isn’t necessary for clients to have core engineering knowledge, according to Alexander. He has worked on successful projects where the customer specifically didn’t have any in-house software development knowledge.

Alexander also explains how pilot projects are an ideal way to assess outsource vendor capabilities. Don’t be afraid to look to small vendors. The size of the outsourcing firm is no guarantee of quality. In fact, Alexander has seen small outsourcing firms run circles around the big boys.

01 November 2011

Is Secure Mobile Computing Just A Pipe Dream?

In this Practical Software show, SEP group member Hadi Nahari, the Chief Security Architect of Mobile and Software Platforms at NVIDIA, talks about the challenges and opportunities that developers face in the exploding world of mobile computing devices. Not only does the growing complexity of mobile devices increases the security challenges but consumer adoption decisions have implications too. If users don’t adopt technologies like Near-Field-Communications then we will be stuck using antiquated security systems.

Does this mean that secure mobile computing is a pipe dream as consumers choose to use ever more complex (and powerful) devices?

Hadi also shares his thoughts on which mobile platforms are the most secure and offers predictions for the next big thing in mobile security.

07 September 2011

A Skype View Of Developing & Testing Mobile Apps For Multiple Platforms.

In this conversation Patrick Hilt - Chief Mobile Handset Architect at Skype offers a fascinating insight into the role that mobile plays in Skype's plans including invaluable practical suggestions on how to approach the tricky issues thrown up while developing & testing apps for the multitude of smartphone platforms in use today. The podcast will benefit anyone who designs, develops or tests software for mobiles.

02 September 2011

Developing Enterprise Apps - Current Trends & Future Challenges.

The interview is with Mr. Motasim Najeeb. Over a career of close to 29 years Motasim has worked for companies like Intel, WebMDs & Oracle & was recently the Chief Technology Officer of Sage Software. The conversation is focused on the development of Enterprise Applications & specifically ERP. Motasim takes an insightful look at the governing trends in these areas & provides a wealth of information about the impact the Cloud & smarter Mobiles are having on the product features, development strategies & customer adoption of Enterprise Apps. He also talks about the greatest challenges facing the more traditional ERP products & what they will have to do to grow. The podcast will be most useful to those involved in anyway with the design, development & testing of any Enterprise Applications.

27 July 2011

Practical Software: The How, Why & What Of Web Application Development.

In this episode of Practical Software Sanjeev Nambudiri interviews Patrick Nicolas – CTO at 24x7 Content & formerly at companies like Zvents & Resonate. Patrick dips into his considerable experience of Web Application Development & addresses a wide range of Qs ranging from the latest trends & tools to the architectural principles to apply & the pitfalls to avoid. It’s not just good enough to have a cool interface anymore - apps need to be able to monitor, store, and analyze vast quantities of social media information to understand trends and help users make decisions. If you develop Web Applications then this is likely a podcast you will want to come back to again & again !

Practical Software: Cloud Computing With Azure - Podcast Interview With Clemens Vasters

In this episode of Practical Software Sanjeev Nambudiri interviews Clemens Vasters - Principal Technical Lead at Microsoft in the Windows Azure group. Clemens is an Enterprise software analyst and architect along with being a well known speaker at major software conferences, an author and an architectural consultant. In this "must listen" podcast for anyone considering the Cloud as a platform he shares his insights on the architectural issues involved in developing Cloud Applications as also developments within Microsoft's Windows Azure Cloud Platform.

24 January 2011

SEP: Does code review automation really improve quality?

In this episode we discuss automated code reviews. Have code review automation tools grown up, and matured, to the point where they lead to REAL quality improvements? Should all software teams be using automated code review tools?

You can check out more information of our show guests here:

Stéphane Vaucher
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/vaucher

Chris Mefford
http://www.linkedin.com/in/csmefford

Pomp & Surkanstance