Upcoming Event: Talk on Simulation Technology

Infowave shall be delivering a 3 hr presentation on The State of Simulation Technology on Saturday 27th November 2010 (0900 - 1200) at Sripatum University. Focus shall be on Military Simulations.

Watts Humphrey 1927-2010

Watts Humphrey, founder of the Software Process Program at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and recipient of the National Medal of Technology, died Thursday at his home in Sarasota, Florida. He was 83.

Known as the "Father of Software Quality" Humphrey dedicated the majority of his career to addressing problems in software development including schedule delays, cost increases, performance problems, and defects. Humphrey joined the SEI in 1986, after making what he described as an "outrageous commitment to change the world of software engineering."

Upcoming Event: Presentation on CMMI

Infowave shall be delivering a 3 hr presentation on CMMI and Software Process Improvement on Wednesday 13th October 2010 (0800 - 1100) at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT-CSIM).

RE = RM + RD

Requirements Engineering = Requirements Management + Requirements Development

Will DI change the way we teach OOD ?

As technologies such as Dependency Injection frameworks like Guice and Spring gain traction and become main stream practices, do we need to change the way we teach Object-Oriented Design ?

DI usage has an impact on the dependencies between classes, and how classes are instantiated and generally "wired" together. These patterns greatly facilitate unit testing of our implementations.

Current OOD material does not yet support this concept, may be we should start to think about that.

Not using UML yet ?

Is that possible ?

I was going over some archival messages at stackoverflow the other day and came across a post about different technologies being used in organizations. I was surprised to see a low turn out in the UML column. Not using UML in your projects is akin to building a house without a blueprint. Possible, but highly risky.

Not to mention how to fix that leaky water pipe five years down the road (what pipe ?).

Do new Best Practices = old Best Practices

Back in the 90's we had a set of Six Best Practices that were published by Rational and formed the foundation of the Unified Process. These are:

• Develop Iteratively
• Manage Requirements
• Use Component-Based Architectures
• Model Visually (UML)
• Continuously Verify Quality
• Manage Change

Then some years ago, these were revised into the ABCDEF Best Practices:

• Adapt the Process
• Balance Stakeholder Priorities
• Collaborate across Teams
• Demonstrate Value Iteratively
• Elevate the Level of Abstraction
• Focus Continuously on Quality

So, do they still convey the same meaning to our teams ?

Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors

The MITRE Corporation has published the 2010 CWE/SANS Top 25 Most Dangerous Programming Errors. This reports consists of a list of the most widespread and critical programming errors.

Preparing for your Project

A very valuable resource in preparation for a software project is this compact 400 page book from RUP experts Per Kroll and Bruce MacIsaac. It consists of 20 Practices that dramatically increase the likelihood of a successful outcome.

• P. Kroll, et al. (2006), Agility and Discipline Made Easy, Addison-Wesley.

If this book brings you nothing new, then you are already on the right track. Highly recommended.

Recommended reading for Run Time Architecture

Reference books dealing with Run Time Architecture:

• D.Schmidt, et al. (1996), Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture Volume 2: Patterns for Concurrent and Networked Objects, Wiley.
• B. Goetz , et al. (2006), Java Concurrency in Practice, Addison-Wesley.
• D. Lea (1999), Concurrent Programming in Java, Prentice Hall.

Recommended reading for AIT's OOAD bootcamp

The following is a list of recommended books for use in the OOAD bootcamp which I shall be teaching during 20 Jan 2010 - 8 Feb 2010 at AIT.
Textbook(s):

• P. Kruchten (2003), The Rational Unified Process: An Introduction, 3rd edition, Addison Wesley.
• Booch, G. et al. (2007), Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications, 3rd edition, Addison Wesley.

Reference(s):

• A. Hunt, et al. (1999), The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master, Addison Wesley.
• E. Evans (2003), Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software, Addison Wesley.
• F. Buschmann, et al. (1996), Pattern Oriented Software Architecture: A System of Patterns, Wiley.
• L. Bass, et al. (2003), Software Architecture in Practice, 2nd edition, Addison Wesley.
• J. Rumbaugh, et al. (2004), The Unified Modeling Language Reference Manual, 2nd edition, Addison Wesley.
• E. Gamma, et al. (1994), Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, Addison Wesley.
• M. Fowler (1999), Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code, Addison Wesley.
• J. Bloch (2008), Effective Java, 2nd edition, Prentice Hall.
• T. Quatrani (2002), Visual Modeling with Rational Rose 2002 and UML, 3rd edition, Addison Wesley.
• T. Quatrani et al. (2006), Visual Modeling with IBM Rational Software Architect and UML, Addison Wesley.

There may be some additional books which I shall add at a later date.