Jeremy Hutchings

One of my ongoing pet peeves it's the marketing over substance of the usual "agile" and "scrum" proponents. I've found near constantly that the focus of this approach by it's advocates, is not to facilitate a team; but to prove that the process (i.e. scrum based agile) is the best (and typically only) way to run a technical project, and write software. Agile? ......... sounds more ridged to me. I find this ironic as the pushers  (appear, in my experience to) rarely come come from a software architecture, or at least development back ground. It more appears a thinly veiled covering over typical old school management tactics. As in part demonstrated by this post : http://www.infoq.com/news/2010/11/working-with-difficult-people Ignoring the apparent "I'm right your wrong" title (which sums up what I'm talking about) and going straight for some of the contents of the post, that  supports my points. (Points they are ironically...

Background  For a current project I am experimenting with XenForo and integrating CI (CodeIgniter) to build some extra functionality. They are other areas of the site (not form specific). I just needed to be sure that the user ( Visitor in XenForo terminology) was logged in, and if they were a super admin; while having access to libraries and the MVC of CI. XenForo The set up for XenForo is fairly minor, there is none. Just install it and you're done, for this example it's installed in : /var/www/xenforo URL being : http://www.example.com/xenforo/ CodeIgniter I've installed (a default 1.7.3) in a separate directory for the moment just for ease of example (structure you site as needed, as always): /var/www/ci Example URL being : http://www.example.com/ci/ Browsing to, gives us the obligatory all OK from the CI welcome controller : xF_auth I've shared the CI libary on gitHub : https://github.com/JeremyHutchings/xF_auth As with any CI ...

I noticed a post from an past college  Scott MacVicar  about getting involved with and helping out PHP.  Personally I've always thought about it and wanted to, though have always focused on hard core C, thinking : "Helping PHP, means writing hardcore C, and building libraries" The more I thought about that statement, and the way I typically think about software, Open Source and communities, I realized  what nonsense that is . There is so much more going on in a project and community, therefor there are many more ways to help. Developing a technology & community is a holistic activity . Some of us are writers, framework developers, application developers, business decision makers, power users, clients making requirements, community members, and so on. Though a lot of us, are more than one role, it takes us all and there is always room for more. Though you could use these points for any OSS project, I'm just ...

Recently I've been meeting with a local company to asses what opportunities they have, how they operate and more importantly, how they treat people. I wanted the first hand information opposed to going on their reputation. I met with them 3 times (have to give them a fair run and all that) and each time there was something strange going on. First time around, in a 14x14 room with paper and pen to do a memory syntax test, to asses what I'm like as a "developer" ...... really .... Second time was a whole day with a 15 min break and given the last 30 seconds of each meeting to ask my own questions. Then when I was called in for the 3rd interview, my mind was made up, which is the experience I'll use as an example here. For the cost of a few hours of my life (the 3rd interview) and something to reflect on, it turned into a gold mind of "How not to interview software people". Everyone was late, there was no interview process, I'd been given the wr...

1. It will reduce costs, it's cheaper  It's most common excuse I hear, it's also typically the most short sighted, and most that likens software development to manufacturing widgets. Firstly creating software isn't akin to producing widgets , it's a creative process that depends highly on communication, and the quality of that communication. I don't just mean spoken language there, as the issues with that are all but obvious, but cultural as well. The culture and approach of the company, as well as the work ethics of the teams must be the same, or there will be a lot of friction. The speed that decisions can be made and acted on , are dependent one two things. Firstly on how they decisions are actually made  (i.e. process, hence why smaller teams with less management overhead and programmer lead projects will always beat the top down meeting driven interruption culture of bigger organisations ). Though secondly...

How do you log a lot of data without killing your limited setup ? But how can you scale the system or change components easily, i.e. have good architecture ? How to not over load production databases, so logging kills the actual system you're running ? Questions I've dealt with a few times, and a pet project for logging on a game I'm building that I thought I'd share. The situation You've been told to report on " everything " though not given the kind of back-end (or cash) that Facebook/Google/Amazon have for systems like MapReduce or Pentaho. You have at least one server (virtual or real) for "reporting", or at least an allowance of processing time and storage some where. Though if the systems gets big you want to be able to swap out the back end or add more capacity without having to do anything in the application. There are likely some front end machine(s) doing some kind of scripted work, for an application or game (LAMP in this ...

A while ago I met with an ex Technical Director of a very large game company here in Vancouver. I was working for a local company myself, and we met about a possible project between the two companies. While going over the details we reviewed some legacy systems that they would be working with, the software quality was less than ideal. The statement he made quite a few times that got me thinking was - " all software is messy and usually bad, and that's just the way it is ". To which I instantly thought :   “The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear” ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti I'm not sure if this was just his defeatist attitude, or one that had been fostered from coming from a corporate environment that was steeped in technical debt and that usually worked to the lowest common denominator. Though it did make me think - as I don't accept that, at all, so why do so many others? In my experience people who create technology typically a...

Craig Buckler's post over on sitepoint.com : Top 10 MySQL Mistakes Made By PHP Developers got me thinking. Are they really mistakes, and are the answers giving people all the options, or is there more that can be added? So this post is and extension and part reply to that blog post. Maybe the 10 points are just things we can improve on, in various ways depending on what it is we're doing. Or is it just shifting processing & logic from one area to another. My caveat would be - that if every beginning PHP dev read the 10 points in Craig's blog and learnt; the dev world would be a better place. I'm thinking beyond the original points. I'll just mirror the 10 points he makes, to give my 2c to the discussion : 1. Using MyISAM rather than InnoDB I mostly agree with the premise of "Oh just use InnoDB", given what Facebook are doing with it, and the level of active development going on, it's a safe bet at the moment. Though technically i...

I've been asked various questions lately that all could be summarised as : "What do you prefer, waterfall or agile development, which is best ?" I find these questions much the same as asking the length of a piece of string, or what does the colour blue taste like. Nonsensical and out of context for the most part. Firstly a development method, is just that, a method , a process, an organisational tool. And just like any tool there are suitable and unsuitable places, and ways of using it. Using chisels as screwdrivers spring to mind. Agile (or any other) method isn't a silver bullet to cure all software ills, or by any means a "radical" new way of doing things that will cure all bugs. I think there are lots of different aspects to think about before answering the original question, though I'll go over the following ones. Company culture & history How does the organisation currently produce software, does it even do that in house ? A...

I’ve seen quite a few posts recently about interviewing, hiring & job hunting in IT, so I thought I’d share my views. There seems to be quite a divide between companies that think they are the best, want to be, and ones that actually are. The latter are fun, passionate, free flowing places where everyone wants to work. The former seem to just pay lip service to the idea, while demanding their (actual and potential) employees pick up the slack of the organisation. At least the ones wanting to be, know where they are, and are trying ! The flip side is there are a lot of job hunters, who aren’t realistic about their own abilities , or who haven’t really thought about what they are after. I’ve been the interviewee and the interviewer a few times over my career, so like a lot of us I have dealt with both sides of the coin. A lot of time is spent sorting the suitable people from the unsuitable people. Just as there is sorting suitable organisations from unsuitable. I know ho...