Hofmann Associates  Technology

Technology and Methodology

More and more, I find myself looking at the people side of development. Well, duh! How you develop is much more important than what technologies you use to develop. This is a good time to be casting about for ways of getting things done, there is no lack of people with good ideas.

• Agile Alliance: A bunch of methodologists who agree?
• SCRUM: Scrum is one of the "Agile" methodologies. I've used it effectively at ZNOW.
• eXtreme Programming: Test first? Who'da thought?
• Extreme Programming Roadmap
• Martin Fowler: A very accessible methodologist

Here are some interesting ideas we are tracking:

• Together: Very handy UML modeling tool
• SOAP: Simple Object Access Protocol
  Layer atop HTTP based on XML for exposing web services
• XML: eXtensible Markup Language
  Not the "new language of the web", but rather a way of talking between two loosely-coupled systems.
• Also, here is a good annotated XML specification.
• XSLT: eXtensible Stylesheet Language for Transformation
  A very interesting technology that can be used to transform one dialect of XML to another, or XML to HTML, or XML to plain text, and many other things. Here is a good source for more information.
• Rational UML Pages: Documentation about the UML from the 800-pound gorilla of the industry
• A Learning Guide To Design Patterns: You can't read GoF, you really need a study group
• Patterns and Software Essential Concepts and Terminology
• Anti Patterns: Are any of these familiar?

Here are interesting links to ideas and people we respect:

• Joel on Software: Someone with strong opinions, and I usually agree.
• Quality Tree Software: Software quality training and consulting.
• Coyote Valley Software: Some really good requirements and software process consulting.