Software development may well be the closest activity to perpetual motion that can be achieved in the real world. Approaches and techniques once thought new are more often than not a bad solution to an old problem. Cascading Style Sheets is one of those ancient wheels badly reinvented.

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Seemingly brilliant designs by hot shot developers can result in big problems after the glory and bragging rights have been established. Some independent, arms length testing and review can save a lot of angst and anger before the customer does your QA.
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Nature is full of lessons that we can profitably apply. Some of them can take surprising forms. Our Number Two Cat provided an insightful lesson on software development, although it took a while for us to recognize it. (more…)

Every economic activity has its jargon and secret rights and mysteries held back from the common lot. Technology, particularly that driven by software, has its own, but with a disproportionate impact on the environment that supports it. A serendipitous radio program demonstrated this great divide in an unusual way. (more…)

Writing software, like any creative activity, always takes time, and the time required to finish a given task cannot be predicted with any great accuracy. It is also very labor intensive. There are some simple ways to improve development productivity that have been around for quite some time. (more…)

You don’t need to be a coding expert to get a good feel for code quality. All you need to do is look at the code you paid for, keeping in mind Bismarck’s comment about sausages.
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