2016 - ElegantCode

24 Aug

2016

Attributes of a great development team member

By: David Starr Category:General PostTag: New Post:6 Comments

My boss’s boss recently asked me, “If an Agile leader were to outline the top characteristic of their best developers, what are they? “ The response was relatively quick, and rather “off the cuff”. After re-reading it, I like my answer! Seeks to help others with any aspect of product development, regardless of her individual specialty […]

16 Jun

2016

nodemon leaving Node.js process running

By: David Starr Category:General PostTag: New Post:

nodemon is a great tool for use when writing Node.js applications. It is a simple little tool that simply watches for changes in the file system of your project and restarts the Node.js application when a file changes. Of course, there are more options, but that’s the essential idea. Unfortunately, once you launch nodemon it […]

10 Mar

2016

Is Agile still applicable?

By: David Starr Category:General PostTag: New Post:14 Comments

I just read this interview article with Bob Martin and I have a few thoughts about it. Uncle Bob is extremely code-focused and always has been in his career. This isn’t a criticism, far from it, but one must take that into account when reading his opinions on such matters. He is heavily involved in […]

3 Mar

2016

Memo on O-Ring and Software Erosion

By: Jan Van Ryswyck Category:UncategorizedTag: Craftsmanship:

One of the most fascinating documents I’ve read to date is the memo from Roger Boisjoly on O-Ring Erosion. The original target audience for this memo he’d written were the management folks of Morton Thiokol back in 1985, about six months before the Challenger disaster. What I find so striking about this whole story is […]

28 Jan

2016

Definition of Ready

By: David Starr Category:General PostTag: New Post:

There is a practice in many agile conversations known as having a “Definition of Ready” for a Product Backlog item. That is, a given User Story (or other PBI) must meet the Team’s “Definition of Ready” to be considered actionable or even worthy to estimate. This can be desirable from the team’s perspective when they […]

15 Jan

2016

Agile 2016 Needs You

By: David Starr Category:General PostTag: New Post:2 Comments

You know that new way of wielding JavaScript you’ve been using? Or that container deployment model your company is building? Or the way you’ve integrated UX design with the workflow of a Scrum team? Yeah, we want to hear about that. It’s that time of year again. Time to submit proposals to the Agile Alliance’s […]

8 Jan

2016

3 REASONS TO SPRINT

By: David Starr Category:General PostTag: New Post:2 Comments

Several teams I’ve worked with wonder why it is important to finish work within the Sprint timebox. “This is an artificial container for my work,” they explain. “Why can’t our work just take the time it takes? Why must it be get all the way done in one Sprint?” In my experience, these frustrated teams […]

8 Jan

2016

DEVELOPMENT TEAMS AND OPERATIONS

By: David Starr Category:General PostTag: New Post:

Many software development teams, especially those creating or supporting a shared platform or infrastructure, find themselves overwhelmed by ad-hoc work requests. A frequent response to this situation is to move from an iterative, incremental practice to Kanban or some other flow-based model. In many situations, this is the exact opposite of what should happen. When […]