Thursday, August 21, 2003

Sync and Stabilize (aka Spiral Concurrent Engineering) At the XML Web Services One conference on Wednesday, Michael Cusumano, an author and professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, revealed preliminary findings from a yet-to-be published survey of the latest worldwide trends in software development. What was clear from the research is that a majority of developers are undertaking projects that use the so-called "sync-and-stabilize" approach, in which members of a development project work on modular blocks and then synchronize their code with other members on a regular basis throughout the life of the project. It also requires that they stabilize, or debug, that work on a continual basis as well. In a study of 150 software projects conducted jointly by MIT, Harvard Business School, the University of Pittsburgh and Hewlett-Packard Co., 64% of developers worldwide said they worked on projects in modules. A majority also produced "builds" -- or individually coded components -- on a daily basis in the early or middle stages of a project. The rates were 63% in the United States, 57% in Europe and 53% in Japan. The exception was India, where only 27% of developers were in the daily-build habit. Not surprising, except that it's an empirical study and it's from the MIT Sloan School. May be worth checking out. 2:50:22 PM

WSDM (IBM et al) vs. WSMF (HP et al). COMMENTARY - WSDM THE MISSING LINK. Web Services will not be used pervasively until we have platform neutral management. We assess two recent and very important announcements in this area, and revise our forecasts. [CBDI Newswire] A good analysis of the two proposals, though IBM's WSDM can hardly be called a concrete proposal yet. The WSDM presentation currently only outlines concepts and principles. 10:14:59 AM

A Little Linux Advice is a Dangerous Thing. Gartner Ignored: Fortune 1000 Adopt Linux.. "As far as their internet presence goes, big companies are doing the exact opposite [of Gartner's 'go-slow' approach to Linux]; over 100 enterprise sites run by probably the very same Fortune 1000 and global near equivalent companies that recieved the SCO letter have switched to Linux since May, including Schwab.com. [Source: Email from Mike Prettejohn of Netcraft in Tim O'Reilly's weblog.] Amusing set of disparaging comments about Gartner in the comments to the O'Reilly article. To some degree, the disconnect is between the world of IT developers, which is fact based, and the world of IT management, which is perception-based. 8:59:45 AM

A Simple Guide to the A-List Bloggers. Hilarious because its so true. It's amazing how many of these bloggers I have come across in my brief time blogging. 6:33:54 AM