Using descriptive names is a good programming practice. Today I came across an example that does quite the opposite. In Maven 2 you can define a proxy when you are working behind a proxy server, and there is this active flag that sets this proxy to active or inactive.... or at least that is what you expect right?

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Filed under Java, Maven | 7 Comments »

Agile 2008 is an international conference in Toronto on Agile software development. It's held from the 4th to the 8th of August. It's gaining in popularity with 1600 participants from all over the world. Of course most attendants are from the US and Canada.

I attended this conference and gave a presentation together with Olav Maassen. I want to share some of the inspiring ideas and 'vibes' that I picked up at the conference.

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Tags: Agile
Filed under Agile | 4 Comments »

Working abroad has been a wish of mine for some time now. Xebia offers me the opportunity to live and work in India. Through this blog series I will keep you informed of the progress and challenges of this project.

The last days I’ve run into a lot of problems that to me are very much related to India. I try not to let them spoil my day, although I hope I can finish this story, because my battery is running low and after it goes there is not much else to do in my dark apartment…
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Filed under Moving to India | 3 Comments »

My initial 100 days @ Xebia?

I'll say it takes something “extra” to be here. It calls for the people with perseverance and "ready to take on any challenge" kinda attitude . (more...)

Tags: Agile, Agile Awareness, Java, Xebia
Filed under General | 3 Comments »

Producing valuable, working software is an art. Practicing this art involves intuition (insight), talent and craftsmanship, like practicing any other art. The main principles of this craftsmanship, shared by many other craftsmen, are “know your tools and materials” and “less is more”.

The recent blog by Lars inspired me to write about my perception of craftsmanship in software development.
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Working abroad has been a wish of mine for some time now. Xebia offers me the opportunity to live and work in India. Through this blog series I will keep you informed of the progress and challenges of this project.

Last week I have spend a lot of time looking for a suitable apartment to rent. It has been quite an experience. I was very lucky to have the help of my Indian colleagues. The most important thing I’ve learned this week is the importance of judging people. I’m not sure if I’d be able to perform this art on my own just yet, but I’m learning.

After searching for a full week, I’m happy to say that I have found a very nice apartment in a very good area of South Delhi. I’ll try to move in next week.
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Filed under Moving to India | 2 Comments »

Vincent Partington and Robert van Loghem give an introduction about Automated Deployment (automated installing applications on complex infrastructures).

- What are the complexities in todays big corporate infrastructures.
- Why is automated deployment needed. 

- What is the future for automated deployment. (also see; Deploy it)

So head on over to the show page or subscribe to our podcast!

Filed under Java, Middleware, Podcast, Xebia Labs | 2 Comments »

You may land up in situations when a project is almost stable. For developers handling issues and enhancements for the project, the work available is not sufficient. So, when team is comfortable with the project and it's already stabilized, team can start handling another project at the same time. It's good for the people working in these projects from learning perspective. They are exposed to multiple technology stacks, problems and functionality. At the same time, it works well for an organization in general.
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Filed under Agile, Agile Maintenance, Project Management, Scrum | 4 Comments »

Agile 2008

At Agile2008 in Toronto Jeff Sutherland and myself presented our article outlining how to achieve hyperproductivity in distributed Scrum when working in an offshore situation. InfoQ recorded our presentation and will publish it online in November as the end of a series of Agile2008 talks.

Download article    Download presentation

Also see this InfoQ article

Agile and Offshoring, oil and water?

If you are reading the Xebia blog chances are that you are already familiar with the benefits of Agile development. Practicing Agile (in our case Scrum combined with XP) delivers hyperproductivity combined with very high quality. The promise of offshoring in the modern IT industry is also clear: more available talent, scaling up and down without local layoffs or knowledge drain, and of course cost reduction. Together they make a killer combo!

However, Agile and offshoring seem like oil and water, they don't seem to mix. How to get a focus on individuals and interactions when your people are distributed across the globe? What is the secret sauce to use to get it running smoothly?
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Tags: Agile, distributed, offshore, offshoring, prorail, Scrum, sutherland, Xebia
Filed under Agile, Articles, Scrum, Testing | 1 Comment »

This is the literal translation of an old dutch saying "Vakmanschap is Meesterschap"; being a master in your profession. In my opinion the lacking of this is one of the biggest problems in software development these days and main reason why projects fail; it isn't a process that caused it, nor the technique that was used: It's actually people that mess up projects! Did the technique or process pick itself or did someone pick the technique or process?
Currently there is also a debate going on whether or not to include Craftsmanship over Execution as fifth value on the Agile Manifesto.

But let's take a step back and try to figure out why we are lacking craftsmanship?

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Filed under Agile, General | 4 Comments »