While we’re talking about CMM, I should point out someone’s ideas about levels of capability and mapping them onto people. Funny, because someone else had this same idea years ago.
/\ndy’s weblog raises an interesting point about the promises made by CMM, RUP, and really any process which promises repeatable results:
One of the goals of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) is to achieve a defined, repeatable process to design and produce software. Software processes such as RUP implicitly promise that the Process will fix any problems introduced by us unruly people.
Now I’m not going to say whether the CMM and RUP are good approaches or not, but I would like to pose a challenge for you.
I want a defined, repeatable, process for making a hit movie. It should be well documented, and perfectly repeatable, with no consideration of the talent involved. Just turn the crank, and rely on the process to work.
That’s what everyone seems to want for software development. Creating movies is very similar to developing software: you need a potentially large team, with many specialties, a lot of disparate (and occasionally unruly) technology, a lot of creativity, a good overall architecture/design, and lots of attention to details. Oh, and it has to satisfy the sponsor and end-users as well, even if you’re not completely sure what it will take to do that.
So given that they’re very similar activities, I challenge advocates of repeatable software process to show me a process that will work for hit movies as well.
And when they can’t, take a good look at why not.
I’m in agreement in principle. However, with some of the movies which have come out lately I sort of have to wonder if there is a box sitting in the corporate offices of Universial or Paramount cranking out the results of the hit-movie algorithm…
This blog is really insightful, discussing many poignant issues in programming. I have spent the last hour or so browsing. Everything in the blog seems to indicate that he has it together with Java, except this part:
During a conversation with Diego today, he pointed out that the protected qualifier in Java does not prevent access to classes within the same package.
That was news to me. I always thought protected limited the access to subclasses of the class that contains the protected member.
Really? How did you not know that? No matter, the rest is pretty good.
The Onion offers a bunch of Love Coupons. I’m particularly excited about “One sexual act completed expressly for the purpose of procreating another child of God.”
Can anyone tell me what the official origin of Valentine’s Day is? I’m finding little conclusive evidence in the Wikipedia entry on Valentine’s Day, but I get the feeling it’s another pagan holiday hijacked by Roman Catholicism and finally commercialized. In Japan, Valentine’s day doesn’t work out so well for the ladies according to the Wikipedia article. Basically the girls are expected to purchase chocolates, often at great personal expense, for all their male co-workers. They get their payback on March 14, White Day, but they only get goodies from their significant other. Harsh.
the other night
after eating chili
i ripped a pretty good one.
i lifted the blanket
to trap your head
and remembered
you weren’t there.
i miss you.
Pamie.com rocks it for you on Valentine’s Day.
I might have another blog to add to my daily tech reading rounds (usually gizmodo and engadget): MAKE magazine has fired up their own blog. Like the magazine, MAKE’s blog is dedicated to nifty tech projects like hacking your OnStar box and printing food.
I finally got a capcha installed and running on my blog which means I can finally afford to open comments back up! It was easier than I expected. I was kind of waiting for the blogosphere to get it together so I could examine the best practices available, and I finally got a combination of capcha, blacklist, and security through obscurity that I like. It’s not enough to keep my blog completely secure (nothing is, as long as it’s open to the public) but it’s enough to keep it safe from automated attack. I’m definitely going to keep checking out different mechanisms to figure out how to keep my system safer. I’m seriously considering completely rewriting the front end in flash and wrapping all my data in XML. In the meantime, comment away!
I might as well throw this in: a big list of apps useful when using the Xtreme Programming methodology. XPlanner is a nifty open source, browser-based app for project management, the XP way. I could spend all day describing the apps that are listed there, but I’ll leave it to you, my dedicated readers, to research and enjoy.
I really like the Eclipse IDE. For starters, it has the most outstanding installation process I’ve seen on this side of the Mac OS: Open it. Run it. It works. Why can’t all softare Just Work© like that? It also helps that it has an open architecture with lots of plugins available. I’m checking out EclipseSRS, an XML-based, use-case centric software requirements specification tool.
You could almost say that the IBM-funded Eclipse is competing with Sun’s NetBeans IDE except, well, they’re both free. The only thing they can really compete for is warm fuzzies from the open source community. NetBeans has its own plugin catalogue, but the Eclipse plugins are much more abundant and interesting.
For those of you considering a foray into the blogging world, I strongly recommend reading this tutorial, How To Start Your Very Own Blog In Fifty-One Easy Steps!, brought to you by kuro5hin. It provides lots of useful advice. A good read, even for experienced bloggers. I learned a log, especially about choosing templates, dealing with rude comments, and getting the children and elders out of your “profanity zone”.