HELP - My Programmers are AWOL!

Rails
21

Alan F. wrote:

It very much sounds to me that you should be working with a team doing
Extreme Programming. One of the key tenets of Extreme Programming (XP)
is an onsite customer, sitting with the team, offering quick instant
feedback, and working with the team to specify tests for the work being
carried out.

XP also works in 2-week iterations where a small chunk of work is
estimated by the dev team, 2-weeks-worth is selected by the customer
team, and the functionality is delivered, fully tested, at the end of
that iteration. It may even, if appropriate for the business, be
possible to put that chunk of work into production…every 2 weeks.

Start here: On site customer and
I’d try googling it and perhaps mentioning it when you start to
interview others for the job. Will their development process allow you
to be intimately involved with design and development of the program ?

Alan

Thank you! Some of the comments in this forum have been very helpful -
none, quite as much as reading the rules of Extreme Programming!
Perhaps even more helpful is the discussion in Wikipedia relating to XP.

I thought (the following) was interesting:

[ The software development process is profoundly screwed up.
According to the Standish Group, which conducts an annual industry-wide
survey, 15 percent of all information technology projects get canceled
outright, costing the sector $38 billion each year, and companies spend
$17 billion annually on cost overruns. Those products that are finally
released contain just 52 percent of the features customers asked for.
Throughout the industry, projects are chronically late - only 18 percent
hit deadline - and consistently, maddeningly flawed. Estimates of the
number of bugs contained in shipped products run from one defect in
every 1,000 lines of code to one in every 100. According to Watts
Humphrey in his book A Discipline for Software Engineering, IBM at one
time spent $250 million repairing and reinstalling fixes to 13,000
customer-reported flaws. That comes to a stunning $19,000 per defect.
Traditional efforts to improve matters have gone nowhere.
The New X-Men | WIRED ]

As one person responded (in this forum), I did get a good response to my
post. However I cannot help noticing that there appears to be very
little “personal accountability” among many coders. Business(guys like
me), hire(pay) guys like you. And my prediction, is that the coders
that refuse to learn how to work hand in hand with the business that
hire them - will be left behind to rot in their cubicles.

My question, if your still with me, is who is doing XP in Buffalo, NY?

John (Maxxx232)

22

john (maxxx232) wrote:

Alan F. wrote:

It very much sounds to me that you should be working with a team doing
Extreme Programming. One of the key tenets of Extreme Programming (XP)
is an onsite customer, sitting with the team, offering quick instant
feedback, and working with the team to specify tests for the work being
carried out.

XP also works in 2-week iterations where a small chunk of work is
estimated by the dev team, 2-weeks-worth is selected by the customer
team, and the functionality is delivered, fully tested, at the end of
that iteration. It may even, if appropriate for the business, be
possible to put that chunk of work into production…every 2 weeks.

Start here: On site customer and
I’d try googling it and perhaps mentioning it when you start to
interview others for the job. Will their development process allow you
to be intimately involved with design and development of the program ?

Alan

Thank you! Some of the comments in this forum have been very helpful -
none, quite as much as reading the rules of Extreme Programming!
Perhaps even more helpful is the discussion in Wikipedia relating to XP.

I thought (the following) was interesting:

[ The software development process is profoundly screwed up.
According to the Standish Group, which conducts an annual industry-wide
survey, 15 percent of all information technology projects get canceled
outright, costing the sector $38 billion each year, and companies spend
$17 billion annually on cost overruns. Those products that are finally
released contain just 52 percent of the features customers asked for.
Throughout the industry, projects are chronically late - only 18 percent
hit deadline - and consistently, maddeningly flawed. Estimates of the
number of bugs contained in shipped products run from one defect in
every 1,000 lines of code to one in every 100. According to Watts
Humphrey in his book A Discipline for Software Engineering, IBM at one
time spent $250 million repairing and reinstalling fixes to 13,000
customer-reported flaws. That comes to a stunning $19,000 per defect.
Traditional efforts to improve matters have gone nowhere.
The New X-Men | WIRED ]

As one person responded (in this forum), I did get a good response to my
post. However I cannot help noticing that there appears to be very
little “personal accountability” among many coders. Business(guys like
me), hire(pay) guys like you. And my prediction, is that the coders
that refuse to learn how to work hand in hand with the business that
hire them - will be left behind to rot in their cubicles.

My question, if your still with me, is who is doing XP in Buffalo, NY?

John (Maxxx232)

John,
You have a whole planet full of programmers at your disposal. Most of
us are not much to look at. Why would you want to limit your search to
just those very few who are willing to suffer the winters in Buffalo NY?
:slight_smile:

jp

23

I would wager that he would want a programmer ‘on site’ to work with
clients
and other members of the team. XP works best among small teams in the
same
location. Some of the best programming I’ve done has been with two
programmers at one keyboard… one drives and the other supports.

24

maxxx232 wrote:

Thanks for all the replies. I will try to explain… further.

So here’s what I think. I’m intimatley involved with the process. I
want a program that perfectly mimics what our job is - how the company
works. I want a virtual babysitter. I contend that I know exactly what
the process is (we are doing most of it now) and I just want them to
build the program that mimics it.

My Questions: Am I unreasonable? Do I need to accept that this project
may not honestly be completed for another 6 months?

2 words: product manager… the lady that stands between the
micro-managing officers and the enlisted.

ilan

25

On Wed, Aug 23, 2006 at 04:13:19PM +0200, Jeff P. wrote:
[…]

My question, if your still with me, is who is doing XP in Buffalo, NY?

John (Maxxx232)

John,
You have a whole planet full of programmers at your disposal. Most of
us are not much to look at. Why would you want to limit your search to
just those very few who are willing to suffer the winters in Buffalo NY?
:slight_smile:

Because you can’t do “proper” XP unless you’re sitting in the same
room together.

It can be faked via IM/video conferencing and maybe some remote screen
sharing for pair programming, but it’s generally considered not as
effective.

–
- Adam

** Expert Technical Project and Business Management
**** System Performance Analysis and Architecture
****** [ http://www.adamfields.com ]

[ Adam Fields (weblog) - - entertaining hundreds of millions of eyeball atoms every day ] … Blog
[ Adam Fields Resume ]… Experience
[ Adam Fields | Flickr ] … Photos
[ http://www.aquicki.com/wiki ]…Wiki

26

My company writes software for employment (recruitment) agencies and
payroll processing agencies in the UK. I know that there is an abundance
of off the shelf products in this market, and if none of them do the job
for you then some of them will customize ad-hoc, which is far cheaper
and quicker than getting a pre-written system. None of the requirements
mentioned here seem that “out there” as far as features go to not be
included in an existing system.

Craig W. wrote:

When he started the job, I suspected he underbid it - but figured we’d
college - so it isn’t pretty, however it is still very robust and it
on the web. We have alot of “work-arounds”. We don’t have efficient
Our first deadline came and went and it became more obvious that
So here’s what I think. I’m intimatley involved with the process. I
I finally was able to prove this concept a few weeks ago, one of them
applications/systems that will be more than just another tool that they
may not honestly be completed for another 6 months?

schedules and do it much better? Yes
[email protected]
http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

–

Jeremy W.
Serval Systems Ltd.

www.servalsystems.co.uk http://www.servalsystems.co.uk
Tel: 01342 331940
Fax: 01342 331950

27

One technique that I have used with good success is to conduct
periodical “Show-and-tell” sessions. Held at least every two weeks,
they involve getting all interested business stakeholders and
programmers in a room, with each programmer getting up in turn and
demonstrating all the stuff they have been working on in the last
iteration. It is important to enforce one rule: the stakeholders are
allowed to ask clarification questions of the programmer, but not to
discuss the functionality either amongst themselves or with the
programmers - if they believe there is an issue with the
functionality, they flag this and move on. This prevents drawn-out
arguments over business functionality during the session. A
facilitator (possibly a project manager) needs to be present to
enforce the rule and note down all possible problems, to follow up
later with a smaller audience.

Max