eXtreme Programming is not a silver bullet

eXtreme Programming is not a silver bullet: "eXtreme Programming is not a silver bullet
brian d foy


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Apr. 19, 2004 02:01 PM
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URL: http://www.ddj.com/articles/2004/0405/...

Matt Stephens and Doug Rosenberg (co-authors of eXtreme Programming Refactored: The Case Against XP) wrote 'The Irony of Extreme Programming' for the latest Dr. Dobbs Journal (which you can also get online with a membership).

They point out some of the things that I have thought for a while: eXtreme Programming (XP) has a lot of nice ideas, and it mitigates some problems, but it is neither a religion or a cure-all. In fact, it can create some problems of its own if not used well.

I like that they step back from the hype to look at some of the problems. I think the programming world (or maybe just the world, unqualified) tends to get too caught up in using a particular process or technique, even if common sense says something else. I have often told those close to me that if they cannot criticize their favorite thing, they do not know it well enough.

They quote an email one of their readers sent them:

The pair programming is mind numbing. With this XP stuff, software development is no longer a professional occupation, it's just another type of assembly line work.

Different people have different ideas about that, and as I write this from Detroit, home of the Henry Ford Museum, I wonder if those great innovations I learned in elementary school, like division of labor and the assembly, caused the same reaction. I would certainly expect that demoting a master craftsman to the assembly line would cause some problems, so why do some shops insist on doing that to senior developers just so they can say they practice XP?

brian d foy is a Perl trainer for Stonehenge Consulting Services and is the p"

Cryptographers to Hollywood: prepare to fail on DRM [printer-friendly] | The Register

Cryptographers to Hollywood: prepare to fail on DRM [printer-friendly] | The Register: "Cryptographers to Hollywood: prepare to fail on DRM
By John Leyden (john.leyden at theregister.co.uk)
Published Thursday 17th February 2005 19:37 GMT
RSA 2005 Movie industry representatives at RSA 2005 in San Francisco today called on the IT industry in thwarting illegal file sharing before the problem threatened its revenues. But they were told that they must recognise the limitations of digital rights management their fight against digital piracy.
Speaking on the RSA conference panel Hollywood's Last Chance - Getting it Right on Digital Piracy, Carter Laren, security architect at Cryptographic Research, noted that cryptography is 'good at some problems, such as transmitting data so it can't be eavesdropped or even authentication, but it can't solve the content protection problem. If people have legitimate access to content, then you can't stop them misusing it.
'Anyone designing content protection should design for failure and if it fails update it,' he added.
John Worrall, marketing VP at RSA Security, agreed that content protection systems should be easy to upgrade. The entertainment industry must also learn from its previous mistakes in pushing the weak CSS copy-protection system for DVDs: 'If content providers open up standards to good cryptographic review they will get a better system,' he said, to applause from the RSA 2005 audience.
The entertainment industry also needs to be responsive to changing market conditions and consumer preferences, according to Worrall: 'Don't lock down a set of content rules that look draconian five years from now. Be flexible enough to incorporate change in rules. If rules are too restrictive people will go to other channels, including pirated material."

Embedded.com - Software synthesis for embedded systems

Embedded.com - Software synthesis for embedded systems: "Software synthesis for embedded systems
By Bob Zeidman
Embedded Systems Programming
(01/20/05, 14:32:00 H EST)


Synthetic operating systems might mean never having to port software again. Software can be automatically generated-synthesized-to meet the demands of a changing system.

For decades hardware design began with a schematic-a graphical representation of the hardware that could be turned into components and wires, a printed circuit-board layout, or a semiconductor chip. At first the process was done manually with hand-drawn schematics that were translated to layouts by highly trained draftsmen. The process was later automated with schematic-capture tools, automatic netlist generation, and physical-layout programs, though the concepts remained the same. Eventually, chip designs grew very large and a new design method was needed. Thus was hardware synthesis born.

Hardware-description languages (HDLs) similar to programming languages were developed and now all chip designs begin as lines of code. The code is written at a high level that hides much of the complexity from the designer, and then is synthesized into a low-level description for layout and analysis. I'm proposing that the time is right for a similar evolution in embedded systems software design.

Synthesis is the process of taking a high-level description and turning it into a lower-level description that, in the case of software, can be compiled directly. By working at a higher level, the user is kept uninvolved with implementation details. Synthesis employs automatic code generation (ACG) but there's more to it than that. Some popular and useful code-generation tools already exist. Microsoft Visual Basic and HTML-layout tools like Macromedia's Dreamweaver allow users to create graphics and buttons with little or no knowledge of the underlying code. These kinds of ACG tools are indispensable for creating a user interfa"

Path and Classpath in Java SDK and JRE

Excellent Red Wine

DSC00634,
originally uploaded by nkchang.

From Costco~~

BenQ DE530 - 超想敗的HD DVD錄影機!

Wow! BenQ出手的東西這次不錯耶, 400g大硬碟
可以跟名模代言的Pioneer相比摟~
基本上這台的硬碟容量夠大

Welcome to BenQ

認真考慮要購買中...

C|Net新聞: 專訪Laszlo公司的CTO David Temkin

非常特別的, IBM 把 Laszlo技術包裝成OpenLaszlo以開放原始碼方式推出, 這讓我想到之前在C|Net看過的一篇專訪:

CNET News.com專訪David Temkin

基本上David是個樂觀主義者...這是我看過之後的結論

嚴苛的Blog評論者!

50KD0001,
originally uploaded by nkchang.

前幾天前公司同事聚餐, 我的老長官跟老戰友都有出現....吃完義大利麵後開始討論最近我們再幹麻...沒想到, 居然兩位長官開始拿著我的電腦, 評論起我的blog起來....
K同學(圖中嚴肅狀)口齒之辛辣...居然單篇單篇的批判....Q_Q...內容等我內心稍微平復點再來報告...嗚嗚嗚

Altnet開始對P2P提供者收取費用...

A very strange way to get cash...

Altnet seeks patent royalties from P2P | CNET News.com
I really wonder why AltNet seek for aptent royalities...did Microsoft charge them?
I dun think so.

在Redhat啟動Bind的問題

problem starting Bind on redhat server

很不錯的文件...;D

Azureus: A Java Based BT Client

Azureus : Java BitTorrent Client Tracker: 2.2.0.2/0.8.8

Bind9 View - master / slave

IN Chinese, View and Master Zone in Bind9

Webmin有問題嗎?請看這邊~

Configuring BIND with Webmin - RimuHosting

DNS and BIND 9 kill my weekend...;X

Forbes.com: Get Ready To Call ITunes

Well, when Apple's stock price higher and higher, it might be time that call iTune ITune...

2004年CNN的年度字眼-Blog

Blog is the hit word this year~~~看來Blog成為草根媒體的趨勢已經不可避免了;)

CNN.com - Publisher: 'Blog' No. 1 word of the year - Nov 30, 2004

Seems the online publish become more and more personal~~

程式師的前程-轉自UDN文化誌

Article from Mainland China talk about Programmer Life~~

http://mag.udn.com/mag/dc/storypage.jsp?f_MAIN_ID=3&f_SUB_ID=3&f_ART_ID=3834

在IT行業由超常趨向平常的階段，社會關注熱點轉移，程式師的社會平均薪資水平由高向低回落，引起了許多人對程式師前程的思考。按專家或行業資深人士的說法，程式師有兩條進階路線。一條是技術路線，由程式師，經系統分析師、系統設計師、專案經理、產品經理，直到架構設計師為歸宿。另一條是領導路線，由程式師，經開發小組負責人、工程負責人，奮鬥到專案經理。

無庸置疑，每種說法都有存在的個例支援。實際上，能走常規進階路線的畢竟是少數人，大多數程式師在吃過青春飯後，面臨著前途選擇問題。這與運動員、航空乘務員、舞蹈演員等的職業境遇是類似的。相比之下，程式師是種新生職業，而且是多數人認為更高尚的腦力勞動，如果能看到更好的轉型方向，還可以心理平衡。現在面臨困境的程式師們，在未看到明朗前途時，迷茫，焦灼，敏感，難容對自己不利的言語（哪怕是真實的）。

Talk on the MSDN Channel 9 for Obfuscation

Nice Talk on the MSDN Channel 9 for Obfuscation!

Channel9 Forums: "Gabriel Torok - Protecting .NET applications through obfuscation
Posted by The Channel 9 Team Wednesday, Nov 17, 2004
Gabriel Torok is CEO of Preemptive Solutions. They sell the Dotfuscator, which lets developers protect their programs against reverse engineering while making them smaller and more efficient. Here Mike Hall interviews Gabriel about how Dotfuscator works.

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What you say (7 replies):
kidzi says: This is interesting, but how does one go about debugging an application which is dotfuscated? I am used to internal apps where we can look at a call s... #
iStation says: MS, please include Dotfuscator Pro in MSDN subscription. At least, please include a string encryption and an ILDASM breaker in Dotfuscator c... #
sn1p3t says: [quote user='kidzi']This is interesting, but how does one go about debugging an application which is dotfuscated? I am used to internal apps where w... #"

Nokia's Platform for delivery rich content

Nokia's Platform for delivery rich content

Nokia - Preminet Solution

Wonder if it will success or just like active server....;D

Nice articles from MSDN, Micro-ISV

Visual Studio Home: Exploring Micro-ISVs

Well, most time we almost forget, one people can also create great software, most important thing is, excellent software always start from one mind...

Must-read article!