Even though free time has been somewhat scarce I have tried improving my routines when it comes to development and coding. But as the workload has been going up and down a lot I’ve mostly used the few slow periods to relax. I haven’t been to a PHP conference since 2007 and a more general software development conference since 2006. I feel I’ve been, work aside, somewhat lazy the last two years.

So I decided it is time to read a bit more on agile methologies, Zend Framework, setup a completely new laptop development environment using Ubuntu 9.10, Zend Studio 7.1 and Zend Server. I will also try out Mingle from Thoughtworks for project management. Ok the last thing can be a bit weird having only one additional team member besides myself on current projects. But I’ve been interested in trying it out ever since hearing about it by Dan North from Thoughtworks in an software development conference a couple of years back. Expensive but interesting to see if it can be used in teams trying to stay agile even though they are spread out geographically.

At the moment I’m rereading the excellent book Practices of an Agile Developer. It is a brilliant book packed with inspiration that can help you develop and improve your habits for an agile approach to software development. It is good to browse through it every once in a while to remind yourself on how you should work Conveniently enough I was also just recently shipped a copy of Zend Framework 1.8 Web Application Development which I hope will be an interesting read as well. I also feel it is about time I read a more in depth book on XP or Scrum. I’ll see what good books I can find on that topic.

So the next few weeks, when I’m not working or trying to be a good dad to my daughters, I will try not to shut down my brain in front of the TV and instead study for a bit.

In my experience, trying out new things and reading a few good books, can do wonders to your inspiration and also give you more energy to face both challenging as well as more mundane, even boring, tasks.

“Using your brain while developing is really helpful” – Lars Jankowfsky. Maybe I should stop the bad habit of lazy coding while watching TV…

One thing that makes me happy is that they have added a session on Zend Framework. I look forward to that as I have begun to rely on Zend Framework quite a lot.

IPC 2007 and Ajax In Action

Lars Jankowfsky during his session

I have just spent two days with a collegue at the conference Expo-C in Karlskrona, Sweden. The first day of the conference was a treat. Dan North from Thoughtworks had a whole day on the topic “Health Factors for Agile Development”. A whole day of agile discussions without one single powerpoint slide. Well spent time. Agile development, for those not in the know, is a loose collection of methodologies that in a many ways turn the traditional waterfall method upside down.

I am in some ways already using at least some of the principles of agile development. It is however difficult in a large consultancy company with its own huge methodologies for everything around application life cycle management, development and so on. Even so, I do know a few larger companies that use agile methods, that have used them for some time. One example is Iona that are big in integration. They pushed XP heavily when I last had a conversation with their recruitment departement in Dublin five years ago. Even though I have always liked the principles of XP and other agile development methodologies I have never liked the fanatical “all or nothing” message. That is why Dan Norths session was so refreshing.

Dan North seems to have a very pragmatic view of agile development. Sometimes words like pair programming pops up and it is clear that he is a fan of that. But Dan mostly push forward the importance of converting from the traditional waterfall process into a more iterative process. I think it is important not to misinterpret this as having the same meaning as iterative in RUP for example. In mastodont methodologies like RUP iterative is more about splitting large projects into a managable chunks – or releases. That is not being iterative.

Maybe the most important message is that agile development really is about communication and trust. That is what it boils down to. As Dan put it – “if possible; send email instead of documents, use IM instead of email, call instead of sending email or walk over to the other guys desk instead of calling”. Bring communication as close to the people involved as possible. This is hard in an organisation or in a consultant/client situation where there is no trust. Most documentation in traditional projects don’t really have a clear receiver. It is only used in the blame game that follows a failed project. When you trust each other, and work together towards a solution, problems occurs more seldom. Development, if you think about it, should be all about collaboration, to work towards a common goal, and having fun doing it.

Later on I might write something more on BDD, Behaviour Driven Development, which Dan North spoke about in a smaller session the next day. BDD changes the terminology slightly around Test Driven Development in a way that I think makes this more acceptable to many developers.