Category: Practices

First, some thoughts on TDD.

Some Twitter chatter and a moment of not knowing what I wanted to code this morning has led me to think about what people should do.

When we make two changes at once, there are four possible outcomes, and three of them are bad!

Perhaps the biggest mistake in XP and Agile ...

Usage changes. Language is usage. Language changes, not necessarily for the better, in my opinion.

Tuesday night's Friday Night Coding Zoom has hooked me. This is the beginning of the result of that hook.

Some thoughts after another pleasant conversation with Colin Hammond of ScopeMaster.

If in fact I'm done, for a while at least, with the dungeon program, what shall I do and write about. Your input welcome.

I was asked what I tell people to do that I don't do myself. The answer may surprise you.

We should have it. What should we do when we haven't?.

Estimation and a tiny bit of code. ScopeMaster took up my challenge.

I don't like estimates in this world. Perhaps you do. If so, and you're so inclined, pick up this challenge. I'll tell you everything I know to help you.

This morning, I plan to write about COSMIC Function Points, Agile Practices, Civility, and Kindness. I can't wait to find out what I have to say.

The experiment i did yesterday deserves a bit of commentary. Something to think about.

Here, some thoughts raised by yesterday's Agile Alliance Zoom thing.

In which: Our intrepid author attempts to find some use for the FP library he has been toiling on for over four hours.

Today, for your delectation, I offer: the Library Trap! (Update: I looked at XSet2.)

Let's see if we can find a decent way to provide filter, map, reduce functions in Codea Lua.

Kent Beck is writing about 'tidying'. It's a whole patch of delicious strawberries, and I highly recommend them.

Yesterday's search for strawberries in the XST patch discovered problems. I want to at least double check what we did. TL;DR: It all works. Odd morning.

We're taught to 'make it work; make it right; make it fast'. We're taught that if it's hard to test, it's not right. Let's explore. TL;DR: No strawberry here?

Can we make our programming life immediately easier with this one simple trick? The answer may surprise you.

Some day--and that day may never come--it may fall to you to write the most important program of your life. Here's one man's example of how to do that.

One 'reason' why folx don't want to learn technical practices seems to be that they expect no benefit. Sometimes that's more about futility than actual benefit.

Some developers show little or no interest in learning practices that could make their lives better. I'd like to understand that.

Wandering off. Spinning down. Fading out. My projects here have a habit of that. What does that say about me, about you, and about our work? And krill? Really?

There are signs and portents. What are they telling us? Is this death--or is it perhaps a rebirth?

I'm taking a couple of on-line comments as writing prompts today. Let's see what we get.

Agile Software Development is about people working together. For that to happen, it helps to be kind, respectful, and helpful. Let's talk about that.

I'm pressing forward with the Lispy thing, but I have some concerns. I find it difficult to think about but I think I have an angle. (Spoiler: It's a wrap!)

TDD is too big a lump to be a good strawberry. Today I'm playing with TDD to try to find a bite-sized goodie. I expect not to accomplish that.

Technical Practices, Craft, Excellence, Improvement, Ease, Joy. What ARE you talking about??

A Twitter exchange yesterday and today has given me today's topic. I love it when not having a plan comes together. (Hm. Societal impact is similar ...)

GeePaw Hill is workin on an idea. I urged him to publish his thoughts because I knew it would help him to make things concrete. Also I wanted to comment here.

I wasn't really planning to write about Sudoku again, but here we are.

It's not the method. It's not the framework. It's your unique assemblage of innumerable small things that work together toward success. And some larger things: the people.

It's Wednesday. At last night's Friday Zoom Ensemble, we talked about Jam. I am inspired to put down some thoughts. Bottom line: On-line strawberry, not raspberry. (Updated, more links.

Just a bit more playing with the Lispy Calculator to while away a few minutes in the afternoon.

Thoughts and observations. Stuff and nonsense.

I'm going to push forward with this LISP / Scheme dialect. I'll begin by explaining why, and why not.

It's still the weekend, so I'm going to follow Peter Norvig's Python LISP Implementation a while and see where it takes me.

It's my weekend and I'll try if I want to. You could try too if it happened to you. Spoiler: This takes a very weird turn. Final line: Your move, Bill!

I guess there's nothing for it but to figure out how to rewrite, i.e. refactor, a set operation based on the existence of helper structures. But how? I have ideas but are any of them any good?

Bill Wake is trying to get me to think in terms of trees. I don't want to, but he does have some good ideas. Thanks, Bill!

Today I plan to experiment with creating some form of expressions that might be optimized. I expect to stumble a lot. Come along, point, and laugh.

No, not smiles and frowns. Algebra. At this moment I don't think much code will be done today. Feel cute, might delete later.

It's 6 AM and I have an idea. This could be very good or very bad.

I don't love the interface for adding functions into an XSet. And I want to add them 'one level in'. Will hilarity ensue? Probably not, but something will happen.

Some HNY thoughts, and more on the function as an element idea. Joy, philosophy, code. What's not to like?

I was thinking before I got up about median and mode. Then I had a truly marvelous idea.

I want Lua tables to be more useful as XSets. There's a hard way. But the current design also offers an easy way. (The answer will surprise you. It surprised me.)

I'm on a path to make ordinary tables behave like XSets. But first, I have to figure out how this thing actually works! Much musing, then some code.

I have in mind small things for today, starting with an interesting and confusing mistake left over from yesterday.

No, I'm not hearing voices. But the code does tell us things, just like any working material. We need to learn to listen. Today, we listen and the result is good.

A look at the code. Maybe a bit more on stats. P.S. I learn something and ditch almost all the code I wrote this morning.

It's Christmas, I'm waiting for the household to wake up, and I enjoy what I'm doing. Perfect holiday so far!

Today I plan to get grouping and summing working. Who knows, it might happen. If not, there's always tomorrow or my birthday.

Let's think about what the current drafts of summing and grouping tell us about our system. Then code (anyway).

Today, rather than make any deep progress, I plan to work on something I consider interesting, sums, averages, and grouping. I promise to publish this even if it explodes. (It doesn't, quite.)

Transformations, optimizations, and the relationship between OO and XST. Got some thinking to do. You get to watch, if you're tough enough. At least a tiny bit of code.

Step by step, inch by inch, slowly we turn long searches into more direct accesses.

I don't want to get stuck in a never-ending series of new setops: there won't be much learning there. Where's the beef?

I'm sure a lot of you have been saying 'Yes, but what about tuples?', or 'Why XST anyway?'. Today, we address those fascinating concerns.

Let's work on those new operations a bit.

Short morning today. I have a tentative plan for indexes. I'll scribble some sets. Might code.

Last night's Zoom Ensemble netted me a few ideas. I'll start exploring those today. Hilarity or perhaps something good will ensue. I can't wait to find out.

Further reading leads me to think about design, and design motivation. Castles in the air. Or underground. Good stuff happens.

In conversation with Bill Wake and with the Internet, I have an idea for something to try. And I'm just about ready to assess where we are and where we should go.

I'm not sure whether this will be useful, but Bill Wake gets the credit if it is.

Bill Wake was trying to hammer an idea into my head. I must think about that. And I have a small idea of my own.

Time to work on the actual restrict operator for CSV, since the pattern-maker experiment was a success.

There's no way around it, I've got to work on the fast restrict today. Might not finish. We'll see.

Getting started with CSV data. And reporting a conversation.

Reflection leads me to focus a bit more on set operations, and less on internal methods. Does this call for a new layer? Also: real technical debt! Updated with idea from Carl Manaster!

I'm going to try to create pipelines using coroutines. I think they may make for a more expressive interface. I turn out to be partially right.

How do you design a thing like this, Brain? Same as everything else? Or not?

I was puzzling over an issue with 'union' and gained an insight that either I've never had, or that I had lost. Whee!

I found the easy way to build an iterator in Lua, so we'll do that and see whether it improves the code as much as I think it will.

I think I'm going to start on restrict today. There are some issues around atoms.

Last night I understood how to do something with XST that I've not in the past been able to do. So let's talk about why XST is interesting and what one might do with it.

I have a random idea about the data structure for sets, so thought I'd give it a try.

Save me, I'm thinking about Extended Set Theory again.

Just because I think I should do SOMETHING, I think I'll improve how CodeaUnit displays results on the screen.

I'm going to try to build a 'fluid interface' feature for Codea's graphical style capability. Why? I don't know.

Let's improve CodeaUnit a bit. But first, what's the deal with iOS shortcuts? An odd report on an odd morning.

Driven by some Slack chatter, I've been thinking about feedback. How does that fit into life, and into this little program?

Some refactoring, and some thoughts on a Twitter thread. And an odd surprise: the code says No.

Rules, rules. TDD rules, Beck Rules, OK. And a cat.

I'm just not up for going back into the Dung mines. Gonna put plain function detection into the stats instead. Also, random subtweeting. Also bear bites man.

At last, I get to apply Dave's scrolling thing. It's simple, and obvious, and I never thought of it. And a couple of stories of a great programmer.

This morning, I plan to add detailed method reporting to the full report. I am expecting no real trouble but have recognized a mismatch.

Let's get some output up in this baby. I plan to steal two good ideas while I do this.

I wonder what we could do about comments. They're tricky.

"If this is his idea of fun, he must be a laugh riot at parties." -- A Reader

Backward? Or forward? Which was it?

We continue working on our little 'Making App', because it's kind of fun. Today, I foresee a 'major refactoring'.

Let's do methods, and try to drive out some objects.

In the interest of variety, let's do some work for the makers here. Let's see how we can collect some interesting statistics from Codea programs.

What's the deal with Jira? Is it a bad thing, or the worst thing?

We were thinking about words for code. Let's consider these. New! Improved! Now with more words!

Today, I'm going to try a fun exercise to demonstrate Codea's translate, scale, and rotate.

Two ways of doing a thing appeared on the Codea forum today. I'd like to see whether we can transform the one into the other in small steps.

Another in my continued attempts to come to terms with what Scrum is rather than what it could (and should?) be.

Satire? Idiocy? Monkeys? Why not all three?

Again today, I take my writing prompt from GeePaw. I have a good purpose in mind. (Added: Dammit. I didn't expect to end up here.)

Is it useless marketing BS? Certainly there are issues. [CW: language, systemic racism/sexism]

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. -- Maya Angelou

I've had a reply from the Chief Product Owner of the Scrum Alliance.

Jeff Patton writes about the importance of outcomes. Yes, and ...

I've think I've figured out the disconnect between my view of the Scrum Developer priorities, and those of the Refactoring Team who created the new CSD track.

Responses from Scrum officials to my recent Scrum articles here and on more private slacks have not been favorable. I think I'll sum up and move on for now.

I've chosen a large windmill at which one might tilt. Could we, of good heart and great skill and courage, fix Scrum? If so, should we?

The End Scrum Now site, a bit of a rant, raises important issues. Let's explore some of them.

Herewith, some remarks pro-Scrum, and a reminder that Scrum is not as good for developers as it might be. Even some advice to developers.

On June 19th, I sent this email to the CPO of the Scrum Alliance. I have had no reply. In a second article today I will offer some related ideas.

A week ago, I posted a Scrum-related survey. Today, the results of that survey, and my comments.

Scrum asks for an Increment every Sprint. Of all the Scrum rules, this one is most important for developer success and survival.

A few(?) more thoughts on the battle between Scrum and Software Development. A review of some past thoughts, and some of today's.

The Scrum Alliance mission? Let's talk about that. Fail better.

As often happens, this article didn't go where I expected. I hope you like where it went.

What are you doing, Ron, how do you do it, and most of all, WHY?

I was going to move back into the dungeon today, but realized I wanted to talk about what I learned doing the ominoes exercise. Here goes ...

It is of course necessary to display yesterday's polyominoes, for our viewing pleasure.

The Zoom Ensemble folks have been playing with polyominoes. I can't resist embarrassing myself by trying them.

Alistair found some ancient estimate for a KWIC program and challenged folks to implement it. I'm picking up the challenge.

Every time these organizations stamp out a new ScrumMaster, there are programmers somewhere whose lives will be made worse.

Some thoughts on the world as I see it today, in 2021, from my privileged vantage point as an old white guy in the USA.

Today, some code review. No big plans. We'll see what we see. I expect to mention Beck's Four Rules.

We'll look at using invader count as a flag to start a new rack. I don't promise to change it.

I don't feel very bright this morning. Let's see if I can prove it.

I have an idea and I can't wait to try it out. Niagara Falls.

Today's plan: Code review, and targets of opportunity. Short morning, just one new class.

Displaying two player score. Beyond that, we'll see.

Attract mode needs to be turned back on. Maybe we should show both players' scores. What about those buttons?

Let's do more on the two-player game mode. We're probably getting to the hard part.

It's time to start on the two-player option. I have ideas but not precisely a plan.

A lesson from history, a surprise refactoring, and, apparently, a sermon.

Not really, but the saucer is looking to score.

A Slack conversation brought up the question of why I do ... the things that I do.

The Agile Manifesto says that working software is the primary measure of progress. What does that mean?

Users observe the need for more racks of invaders. That's going to get ... interesting. Also Game Over if they reach bottom.

I've convinced myself that a global would be a better way to handle constants than the singleton. Kill your darlings.

Users have detected a problem. Users, do you hear me? Users!

Improving zombie behavior. Sound adjustments. Maybe more. Maybe less.

Let's take a look at a simple attract mode. Zombies!

More with Singletons. And distractions. And no singletons.

Improving our Singleton and using the idea elsewhere.

There's no reason to think that I'm smarter today than I was yesterday, but I am a bit more experienced.

Touch to Start has me thinking that attract mode might be within reach. Things go Very Wrong.

Saucer Scoring, then whatever makes sense to me at the time.

Another day of improv. Let's see what looks worth doing. (Wow, a factory object!)

What shall we do today? I honestly don't know.

Remarks on a Twitter comment from Jez Higgins.

Another defect. I'm starting to feel ... afraid. That's not a good sign.

This isn't Houston, but we definitely have a problem. And it's not a new one. And I'm tired of it.

Things we might do. And I'm thinking about conditionals. The next trick may surprise you.

I have an idea. Let's find out if it's a good idea.

Maybe some tuning. Do we need more start-up settings? Should the test results disappear? What about a FireControl object?

The world is burning, and I'm really just trying to ignore reality, but in addition, I've made a mistake. Another mistake, that is.

If nothing else, you have to admire me for getting over 100 articles out of ancient video games. Let's do another today.

A couple of interesting articles crossed my virtual desk yesterday. Links and some reflection within.

Better scaling, then more with the saucer, I guess. Plus whatever opportunities we spot.

More with the saucer, that's my plan.

I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they're sure ticked off at me for the past few days of messing up.

Well this goes entirely not as planned. Double Arrgh.

In which our intrepid author makes a grievous error: disagreeing with Kent Beck. Or does he?

No, not space pirates all of a sudden. I released a fatal defect yesterday. What's up with that?

A couple of small changes to CodeaUnit and my CUBase template. Then let's see what we can improve about Space Invaders. (Saturday: Arrgh, a defect!)

More to do with bombs, especially targeted ones. We need some refactoring as well. The results may surprise me.

I think today we'll work on the bomb timing, and targeting the rolling bomb. Often, what I think will happen is what actually happens.

Let's continue the bomb dropping logic. Our current design can't do what's required.

Speed indicator; Bomb dropping order; Free player, maybe.

Some recovery from repo problems, some work with the clock, whatever else seems right.

The web site with sounds came back, so I'm scarfing them down and starting to install them. Should be mostly straightforward, he said. Except when my repo locked up.

If you're like me, you're wondering what space invaders eat. The answer will surprise you.

Let's damage shields from below, and try to continue small steps toward 'better', whatever we mean by that.

Let's make missiles explode, and continue improving this design.

I want to figure out why this program makes me feel bad. Then do something about it.

Some improvements. But first, a word about less technical matters, the book `x + y`, by Dr Eugenia Cheng.

A bit of planning, a bit of action.

Let's get a start on scoring. This should be easy enough. But--when is too much way too much?

I woke up this morning certain that some of my bitmap calculations were STILL off. Something has to be done.

A bit more exploding. I'm going to continue to let things get messy.

Let's do some damage

It's my ball and if I want to play with it you're not the boss of me.

One of these two things is not like the other ...

If the world isn't flat, how come these invaders keep falling off the edge?

Today we'll try to fix the collision logic to accommodate our origin changes, and to make the invaders explode.

I've moved the good iPad into the TV room and while waiting for our Sunday festivities to start, I'll set up the project's bitmap assets.

Having decided to move to CORNER mode from CENTER, we've got some work to do. I'm hoping this one isn't interesting.

Is it worse luck when Friday the 13th comes a day early? Or a near miss? Time to dig further into bombs failing to miss shields. (Added Friday: It was worse luck.)

I had no plan. Now I have a plan. Check code clarity, then work on shields. Things go ... oddly

Maybe make the invader bombs do some damage? Or what?

My plan for the day is to retrain myself by reading this code that I've not touched for two whole days, and then to see about moving things forward. My guess: invader missiles.

I think today I'll work on making the invaders march back and forth. Right now they just march forth and forth and forth ...

A friendly demo of shield damage techniques leads to an examination of an interesting coding approach. I need to figure out what I think about it.

It's 6 bloody AM and I'm programming. What's up with that?

Let's see about extending our square invaders game-like thing to be a bit more like a game.

Twelve articles and no product. What's up with that?

In the real game, the invaders' missiles eat away at the shields. How can we duplicate this effect?

An experiment and some planning. Then even some doing.

Learnings from the ancient scrolls. What shall we do about them?

This one is mostly for the record, if it goes as planned. I'm just going to import some more bitmaps. I recommend against reading this.

Let's see what happens if we try to refactor our little spike into something reasonable.

A bit of an idea about marching, and thoughts about spikes.

I need an idea. Representation is important.

I'm wondering how to move these invaders. Let's do an experiment.

Dave1707 from the Codea forum shows a much better approach to converting the bitmaps.

Importing Invaders. How hard could this be?

I'm having so much fun with Asteroids that I thought I'd look at the old Space Invaders game. I'm sure I'll learn something.

Let's clean up that level handling a bit.

Unfortunately, we need to take things to whole new levels. This'll be fun. (Later: not as interesting as some, but it has its moments.)

Let's get some more modernization up in this baby. I'm sure it's the only reason we aren't selling millions.

Let's see about reducing a Singleton or two, and maybe some more modern graphics.

Our marketing people have a challenging request: modernize the look of this game.

It could happen: I've figured out a good way to handle these callbacks.

We'll continue our code review, with particular attention to our tweens, especially that tricky one.

I feel like reviewing some code. What I learn? Kill your darlings.

We're nearly done here!

Some tweaks to hyperspace seem in order, but I feel that this thing is nearly done.

Enhance Hyperspace?

Perfect saucer shots and a start on hyperspace.

Let's put in some options.

Let's clean up the Aimer and look around. I think we need options.

I really want to crack missile targeting. I've made some observations.

Two things go right. One thing goes horribly wrong

Free ships. Beyond that, maybe some reorganization? No, more like confusion.

Let's finish up the small saucer, and how about testing it this time?

Ships Remaining Indicators. After that, who knows?

After some discussion of things we might do, we decide to do GAME OVER. The results will surprise you.

Run tests automatically, dribs, drabs, and oddities. Pretty calm.

Today I plan to give the saucer the ability to aim its shots. I anticipate zero trouble.

A bit of planning and a bit of doing.

Not really an answer, but just a bit of fun.

Some sound, and saucer needs to stop helping so much.

Let's do collisions. And try to TDD them.

We move saucer and ship in the direction of our new scheme, and get rid of the cloning of the collection. Also took a nice walk.

We made a number of useful changes last time. Let's harvest some value.

I'm sure my double dispatch approach will work fine. But the pattern seems simpler than that ...

Some thinking and working on collisions. Is Ron converting to London School???

I've determined that it's time to collapse some 'technical debt', in small, incremental steps.

We need to improve collision detection. I think we have to do it in one go.

I think this afternoon I'll just push a little further on the saucer. Maybe make it dangerous.

I've decoded how to draw the saucers. Let's see about making them fly. That will require some research.

Some rationale, an experiment, some learning, some protection.

We start asteroids on the edge, which gives us an edge on refactoring.

A new approach to steering. And an apology.

I found some better recordings of the Asteroids sounds. And it's time to trigger new waves.

Stereo, because I can.

Based on the 'learning' from #25, let's just make bigger buttons.

Today I decided to experiment with improved controls. The experiments, um, succeeded oddly.

New ship, new sounds, learn new tricks, amaze your friends, confuse your enemies. Apply now! UPDATED!

I think today we'll do waves of asteroids. And some tests.

I've made yet another mistake. Will the embarrassment never end?

I reckon it's time to kill the ship when it's hit by an asteroid. I have a clever way to do it and a direct way. Which is best?

I'm feeling like coding a bit this evening. So stand back.

Thinking about tests and refactoring. The boss wants a feature.

I think it's time to move more toward objects. Part of our mission is to decide what we like. And: 'No large refactorings!'

I thought I knew what we had to do today but I was a bit mistaken. We need more, and better thinking ... and code.

Just arriving 'at work' this morning, I'm thinking we'll make the Ship move. We need a safe place to land first. EDIT: Arrgh, a defect!

A report on last night, and a 'major' refactoring. P.S. There is no such thing as a major refactoring.

A quick report on a short project last night, then let's try to get something nearly playable.

I looked up tween and my tween example and it seems like just the thing. Let's find out.

First, I'm really feeling the need to improve this code. But maybe it's too soon to do good work? Plus explosions.

Displaying different shaped asteroids is nice, but we have an issue of size we might work on for a bit. And let's split them!

Having converted the 6502 asteroid shapes to Codea style, let's plug them in. This design is starting to bug me, and we'll think about that too.

Dave1707 offers a much better idea for the conversion of Asteroids graphics into Codea. Let's explore it.

I found the definitions of the asteroid shapes in DVG language. Let's draw them in Codea.

I spent last night decoding some graphics chip code on computerarchaeolgy.com, and I managed to draw an Asteroid in the classic style. Today, a look at what I found out. Updated: New Resource.

I've decided how buttons should work. It only remains to make it so.

To move forward with this project, the ship needs to be able to move forward. And turn. And fire ...

OK, Asteroids doesn't have a horizon, but today we'll start on the ship. Shouldn't be too hard: it's a triangle.

I needed to test some floats the other day. Let's improve CodeaUnit to help with that.

Today we'll clean up the code a bit. It really needs it.

Today I decided to draw two square asteroids at random angles. All's well that ends well, but I did get confused.

For something to do, and because it might be helpful to new Codea users, I'm going to implement an homage to the old Asteroids game.

The Gilded Rose 'kata' exists in many languages, but I've not seen Codea Lua. Maybe I should fix that bug. This is pretty boring. Skim, don't read. Needed for the record.

Some final thoughts on the Gilded Rose exercise. Well, final for now ...

To round out a dozen, we simplify things a lot. Too much? What do you think?

Experiment with lambda.

Today I think I'll double-check that double-decrement issue. Then I want to see if we can combine those two parallel if nests.

Some really nice progress today ... and one open question.

Dave Nicolette mentioned on Twitter that he was wondering whether a Mob Programming Gilded Rose kata, using Arlo Belshee's 'Read by Refactoring' would make a good video. That gave me an idea.

We're on a path more like re-implementing the program than refactoring it. That's a concern. Can we do better?

Today I plan to move the Conjured item code to the new scheme, and see what that tells me. Something will probably go wrong.

It's noon on Tuesday. I've whiled away the morning. Let's try to make a bit more progress on this code.

Monday, Monday ...

Are we doing it right? Are we in trouble already?

It's April 17th. It's snowing. We're on lockdown. Let's look at Gilded Rose and see what we might do that would be interesting.

Chet, Amitai Schleier, and I played with the Gilded Rose exercise the other day. I think I'll write about it a bit, starting from scratch. [edited]

Wow. Shapr 3D is neat! I wish I could use it. It's so cool I might warp my process just to fit it into my plans.

This may be the most powerful most frustrating 3D application ever created.

To create reasonable creatures or vehicles, I'd need a decent 3D object creation tool. Ideally, since this is an iPad project, an iPad app.

I am supposedly on a course to make the Orc stay within bounds of our little world. Today might be the day ...

It's probably time to work on behavior, so I want to take a bit of time to look forward at what we might do, might not do, and probably won't do.

It's Sunday. My long-suffering wife is prepping for the upcoming election. On my own, I decided to spike motion for my game creature.

I've decided a bit about the 'game' I'm writing in Codea. This should keep me off the streets for a while.

I've been reading examples and searching the web about terrain generation and I'm ready to start sharing. Brace yourself, this gets pretty random.

I feel I've got my feet firmly on the grass, dirt, and bedrock, and I can see what I'm doing. Time to become confused again.

I think I nearly have a solid place to stand: a tiny application that I understand pretty well. Today we'll clean it up and see what's next.

There's trouble, my friends, right here in river city. Is this little project serving my needs? Am I about to break through to the other side ... or to break through the ice and freeze?

We're at a fairly clean point right now. There are a couple of small topics in the code to consider, but we need to figure out a plan for what's next.

Owing to driver error, I lost all my code versions for the Orc program. We'll speak of recovery and then move on.

In response to some question on the codea.io forum, Dave1707 showed me a neat trick with text. It taught me something, and raised some questions.

Despite its great value in the hands of experienced TDDers, the uptake is slow and the practice is often hard to sustain. What's up with that?

The bird experiment worked pretty well. Now it's time to clean it up and consolidate what we've discovered.

I've made a couple of objects move, in two different ways. I figure that topic is spiked. What should I look at next? This session is gonna be rambling, I'll wager.

Today I'll build a different kind of creature, who moves differently from the Orc. The idea is to build up an understanding of where the design needs improvement in terms of flexibility or clarity.

Today I'll review the code, and think about whether to build in some object thinking. I want to ... but should I?

Last time I managed to make a fairly simple Codea Craft program draw an Orc standing on (or near) the floor. Today I plan to make him move a bit, and then to see what I've learned.

Yesterday I managed to move an Orc, by hacking a sample program. Today, let's try to do a clean version to consolidate our learning and ask ourselves some questions. Maybe even begin to answer some ...

I begin trying to make sense of Codea's ambitious and powerful Craft components.

>Alex Bunardzic has been part of a rambling Twitter thread about TDD and people who object to it. One of his concerns is that TDD proponents agree that TDD isn't always appropriate but don't say when. Let's explore that.

I tweeted this on the 18th, in response to something left frustratingly vague by one of my dear colleagues, which caused me to think more deeply about what they said.

Some folks who don't know TDD, and some folks who should know better, have been describing TDD in ways that don't match what I experience. Herewith, some thoughts.

In a Twitter conversation a week or so ago, I was asked to do a TDD video, to show how I do it. A video isn't within scope just now, but here's an article with real TDDed code in it.

A Medium article with an interesting mix of observation and questionable opinion inspires me to write what I hope will be the same. 😈

Despite my concerns about experienced coaches advocating against practices that are often quite useful, there are a few things where I'd at least advise great caution.

Some thoughts from Twitter on 'technical debt', what it is, what it isn't, and why we avoid it.

Why do we do that? One word: Productivity

A number of blogs, tweets and emails have crossed my 'desk' lately, gently or strongly advocating against some generally well-thought-of practices. I'm troubled by that.

This article expresses, in written form, the talk that Chet Hendrickson and I gave at the deliver:Agile conference.

A private note from GeePaw Hill, and a tweet from Brian Marick inspire me to mumble a bit about mindfulness and collaboration.

When I was blurting about the Increment as the most important thing, just the other day, GeePaw Hill mused about collaboration as the most important thing. Today, I'll muse on that and his notion of makers-making-made.

If you are not producing working, running, tested usable software in every single Sprint or iteration, you are not [yet] 'doing' Agile, you are not [yet] 'doing' Scrum.

A question on AgileMentoring.com triggered this little article. Perhaps repetition is the mother of something ...

Kate chats with people at the KALE Society meetup. They discuss some small issues and then one big one. Test Doubles come up. Darts are thrown.

A bit of a screed about naming, triggered by a super idea from Dan Terhorst-North.

We're here to discuss whether Agile ideas fit in with fixed-scope efforts. We'll look at Agile values, principles, frameworks, and practices. The answer is that Agile works just fine.

A couple of people asked me to list all the technical skills required in order to do Agile Software Development. I can't do that, but I can do this.

YAGNI can be a legitimate way to go fast at minimal cost. Skimping on the practices that support YAGNI? That's a mistake. Technical Debt? Not the same thing.

Some words and pictures about the various notions of 'technical debt', or, as I like to call it, wishful thinking.

A recent idea from an Organization That Should Know Better suggested that use of a standard story card format was a good idea. I tweeted 'wrong'. However, Chet and I talked about the subject a bit this morning.

Probably not a good thing to say. Possibly a good thing to think about.

A lovely post by GeePawHill led to a Twitter conversation about up front design, inspiring this article.

First some refactoring - then some behavior.

I decide to follow Braitenberg's approach a bit more closely, driving the wheels at different speeds rather than rotating the vehicle.

Let's Turn - making our little guy turn. And see the comments on Gross Hackery at the end of the article.

I'm playing in Codea with 'Braitenberg Vehicles', just for fun. I'll be sharing what I do with you all.

Agile transformations have little, if anything, to do with Agile Software Development. Let me hook up some connections for you. Bit of a rant here ...

Another tweet-storm, this one about slicing from top to bottom of the software. Slicing provides value, and information, sooner.

I was asked on Twitter what I meant when I said 'Simple, not easy. There's a difference.' I have no idea what I meant then, but here's what I think just now.

A chapter from 'Software Development, How I'd do it'.

The above was the title of my talk with Chet Hendrickson at deliver:Agile. I'll update this with a link to the talk when it is published. Meanwhile, here are some thoughts.

Where do we place the responsibility–surely not blame–when things don't go well on a Scrum team? Who's responsible for taking action? (A bit of something I wrote on Twitter, lightly edited.)

I'm not finished ripping Scrum a new one, but I don't want to come off all negative. So let's talk a bit about what I'd like to see done.

We've spoken often before about the backlog. Let's get down and dirty today. Delenda est backlogus or something like that.

If your factory pollutes the river, you're supposed to clean it up. If you plant kudzu to combat erosion, you are responsible for its destruction of everything in its path. If you swallow a spider to catch the fly, and die when you swallow the horse, of course -- it's on you.

The Sprint causes serious problems in many Scrum installations. What are some ways to mitigate those problems?

Let's consider the Scrum Sprint. What's the strongest case we can make against it? It harms people, how's that for a case?

In the spirit of inquiry, fairness, and a generally bad attitude because it's raining, let's consider how strong a case we can make against Scrum. It might be fun.

These articles about hills to die on are in response to a continuing trope on Twitter and elsewhere, to the effect that X is bad, or Y is better than X, and therefore don't do X do Y. These are amusing, provocative, and rather frequently ... mistaken.

When are Sprints a good idea, when not so good? What are their values, and their costs?

Bashing of Scrum (and other methods) is a common form of Internet Entertainment, and not without reason. Some of the concerns are more accurate than others. Choose carefully which hill you want to die on. In this series we'll explore some hills.

We keep re-reading about the FTP object, and re-learning how it works. Then a week later, we've forgotten.

Last time we zeroed in on the FTP capability of our new cut at my 'iPad' project. Today, I'm hoping we'll TDD an FTP object.

Against all my best judgment, we decide to 'start over' on this tiny product.

We've not done work on this for ages. Tozier and I try to figure out what's up.

Just a bit of reflection after two weeks off. Next week, I hope we'll actually do something. Today I remember the Boy Scout Refactoring Rule.

It has been a week since Tozier and I last worked, and I spent most of the time under repair. I'm thinking we'll work on the date-sensitive stuff. I'm mostly wrong.

Chet has me nearly convinced to move my site base to Dropbox. Today we'll talk further about that and about moving the product forward.

I decide to spike a bit on folder and file manipulation.

When this article appears, it will have been processed by our new (MVP) iPad Transfer Mechanism. 'Thank you for pressing the self-destruct button.'

Tozier and I learned something about habitable code yesterday. Topics may include bits of Confirmation Bias and fragments of Coding Morality.

You'll meet them where they are. You'll work with them where they are. And when you leave, they'll still BE where they are.

I thought today we'd work on the triggering mechanism for the iPad build. Instead something important happened! (Clickbait)

I'm wondering, today, whether the Increment could be the driver for all 'Agile' software development.

If I were a REAL product owner, I'd be pressuring the hell out of my team right now. So I will. How did that work out, Ron?

We'll try to focus on building features today, but there are lurking issues in those magical incantations we do about Dir and FTP classes.

Today, let's talk about cadence. Iterations, Sprints, to have them or not, that is the question.

Thoughts about Technical Debt

Time to do some work after the heavy refactorings involving quantum mechanics. Let's see if we remember how.

I was asked a question about one of today's modern approaches to Agile software development. Here are some general thoughts.

In this short session, we inch forward and wind up in a better place. Not THAT better place. I just mean the code is better.

What's next for the iPad project? Refactoring, it turns out.

We knew last Thursday that we had an issue with folders and folder names. A week later, we dig back in.

An innocent email question leads me off into wildness and chaos. What's new with you?

We really hope to get from end to end today. You won't believe what happens next. Unless you're paying attention.

Tozier and I shoot again for end to end on the iPad project. What happens next? As I write these words, I don't know either.

We're clearly closer than we were, and it feels very close. But not as close as we thought.

Bill and I decided to do a bit more on the iPad publication project. You won't believe what happened next. Unless you expect trouble.

What if I were to create a new software development framework? I'd never do that, but if I did, what might I do? Let's find out. Let's talk today about Whole Team.

Terms seem important to me today. (Revised 2017-07-05: Techniques)

Some Notes on the theme "If I were going to create a new framework, what would it be?".

Today Tozier and I will do a Quick Design Session and start TDDing something that will, I hope, turn into the actual app.

In which we suddenly realize something about Tozier.

Tozier and I start with some Ruby code for FTP or something.

Tozier and I try some things.

I'm told the iPad is the new Mac, or something. Anyway, it'd be nice to be able to write articles on the iPad and get them on my web site without lugging around my Macbook.

I've been trying to learn a 3D drawing program. Yesterday I noticed that I was working but not learning.

Some interesting tweets make me wonder: if I were creating a method today, what would it be?

Over the past few days, an ancient twitter thread accidentally revived, talking about how you don't need quality code when you're just validating assumptions. What do the ants have to say about that?

I was asked a question via email and liked my answer enough to write it up. I hope you like it too.

A Twitter thread gets me thinking about Mock objects and whether they're more than just a matter of personal taste.

Let's try this again. The previous article was not clear to all readers. I suppose this is often the case with my work but in this case I thought I'd try again.

At the time of the Agile Manifesto, we all did the best we knew. Here's something I wish we had done. (Revised)

The Backlog is an essential artifact in Scrum. It may also be the root of serious dysfunction.

Generalizing from a few results isn't proof. In this article I'm going to prove that by generalizing from a few results. Wait, what?

If we can't build software well, all our Agile is for nothing.

Content from XProgramming has been moved to this site. Some brief retrospective thoughts.

Robin Dymond asked me to write about making stories small. Well, there's this.

My friends and colleagues in the #NoEstimates circles have some good ideas, as I've commented elsewhere. I'm left, though, with a couple of concerns.

The Agile Manifesto says "Deliver working software frequently". Learn to do that. The rest will follow.

At the Agile Developer Skills course at the Raikes School, I commented that we don't usually test accessors. But we test everything. Is this a contradiction?

Jon Bettinger has found a failing test! Excellent!

Philip Schwarz provided a nice-looking implementation. Let's look at it and try to build on his ideas.

My critiXXXXX advisors expected a more function-oriented solution. Here's something a bit better, perhaps ...

I've been working with Scala a bit, just to learn what it is. I've found it interesting, if frustrating. Here is a bowling experiment.

Uncle Bob Martin comments on "Developer Certification WTF?" in a recent blog entry. Let's talk a bit about developer quality, and some things that are being done about it.

Choose your tools wisely, that they allow for the development of your skill.

Jim Shore has written a short item with the above title. Let's think about it a bit.

There are essential practices in Scrum and Agile. Not because we say so. It's the nature of the beast.

They're not XP's rules, they're the team's rules.

The C3 project team has voluntarily adopted a large number of practices. Every team member follows these practices closely. We have found that designing, coding, and testing in a consistent way means that the team becomes quite well integrated and that team members know just what they can expect from each other. Software quality is kept more uniform, and at a high level.

Here are a few of the key code formatting patterns we use. The names and some of the examples are from Kent’s book.

We call the combination of frequent release with tests at 100%: continuous integration, relentless testing. The result is rapid progress and a system that always works better than it did the day before.

We all code to the exact same standards. We name our classes and methods the same way, we format code the same way.

Never underestimate the power of inspecting and changing things with Inspectors. Perhaps your GemStone database is messed up: a bunch of People have excess Parts in certain Bins.

A few times during the project, a team took on a task and did not complete it within the iteration. They wanted to complete the task and kept it for the next iteration. This generally turned out to be a mistake.

Simplicity + Communication + Testing = Aggressiveness

We use CRC card design almost exclusively. Developers, managers, and users are all comfortable with the cards, since they are non-threatening. Moving the cards around makes it easy to describe how classes work, and it is easy to throw a couple of cards away and create new ones if the design isn’t working out.

In general, we do not comment our methods. Beck teaches that a comment is used to indicate that a method is not yet finished. That’s how we use them.

We do use class comments to describe what a class is for, and sometimes how it works. We probably don’t do this often enough, and we probably don’t keep them as up to date as we should.

There is some written documentation for the software, more commonly interpreting requirements than documenting design. Sometimes we document an approach to some particularly difficult area. We "never" document code.