Category: Software engineering

The Wetware Crisis: the Expert Pool »

[Note: I originally wrote about this concept in my first edition of The Art of 'Ware and was going to include it in version 2.0 of that book. However, my review of the most recent translations of the oldest manuscripts of Suntzu pingfa has led me to re-interpret the maxims for that section. As a [...]

Negotiations and Lovesongs: Introduction »

[Copyright 2008 by Bruce F. Webster. All rights reserved. Adapted from Surviving Complexity (forthcoming).] Two disappointed believers, Two people playing the game. Negotiations and love songs Are often mistaken for one and the same. – “Train in the Distance”, Paul Simon I used to have arguments with Carol Teasley, one of my mentors, regarding software [...]

The Wetware Crisis: the Thermocline of Truth »

[Copyright 2008 by Bruce F. Webster. All rights reserved. Adapted from Surviving Complexity (forthcoming).] A thermocline is a distinct temperature barrier between a surface layer of warmer water and the colder, deeper water underneath. It can exist in both lakes and oceans. A thermocline can prevent dissolved oxygen from getting to the lower layer and [...]

The Longest Yard: Reorganizing IT for Success »

[This is an article that Ruby Raley and I co-authored and that was printed in the September 2006 issue of the Cutter IT Journal. Space was limited, so we had to be rather terse throughout. Ruby and I may well expand this to significantly greater length later, but for now, here's the original article as [...]

Why software developers should spend time in SQA »

Last Monday morning, I spent a few hours helping out on a church service project, where we’re turning an unfinished basement of a single mother’s townhouse into a bedroom+bathroom for her daughter. At this point, the basement has been framed out and sheetrock hung. My first task on Monday was to take a damp sponge [...]

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