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Debunking Common Refactoring Misconceptions

In comparison to Java, an emphasis on continuous refactoring is still relatively new in .NET. Besides having few ardent proponents, many myths linger around what refactoring really is and how it applies to the development process in general. Danijel Arsenovski, author of Professional Refactoring in Visual Basic, attempts to dispel some of these myths.

Danijel Arsenovski
on Jul 16, 2008
User Story Estimation Techniques

One of the great things about working as a consultant is the ability to try out many different ideas and adapting your personal favorite process to include things that work. This article gives the details about user story estimation techniques that Jay Fields has found effective.

Jay Fields
on Jun 30, 2008
Visualizing Agile Projects using Kanban Boards

In the spirit of "information radiators and “big visible charts” Kenji Hiranabe proposes using Kanban Boards to organize three viewpoints (Time, Task, and Team) so the whole team understands the current status of the project and can work in an autonomous, motivated and collaborative manner.

Kenji Hiranabe
on Aug 27, 2007
The Secret Sauce of Highly Productive Software Development

When Agile teams get stuck in the just-average Norming stage, rather than continuting to the exciting, high Performing stage of teamwork, sometimes they're suffering from an invisible "learning bottleneck" that stunts team performance. Agile practices require us to take time to reflect and learn - and a team that learns quickly succeeds.

Deborah Hartmann Preuss Amr Elssamadisy
on Aug 14, 2007
Book Excerpt: Continuous Integration means Continuous Testing

Continuous Integration, a basic XP practice, has now become an accepted development best practice. InfoQ presents Chapter 6: Continuous Testing, with advice and examples for writing good tests to ensure system quality, from the book "Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk," which aims help teams make CI a transparent "non-event".

Steve Matyas Paul Duvall Andrew Glover
on Aug 05, 2007
Implementing Automated Governance for Coding Standards

Most development organizations of a significant size have some form of coding standards and best practices. Simply documenting these standards and keeping them up to date can be a significant challenge and enforcing them even harder. Our organization has found that enforcing coding standards and best practices in an automated fashion through our build process has been highly effective.

Mark Figley
on Jul 26, 2007
Eric Newcomer on the future of OSGi

Eric Newcomer, co-chair of the OSGi Enterprise work group, talks about the evolution of OSGi and it's relationship to SOA and ESB. He discusses how he thinks OSGi will evolve over the coming years and whether or not it makes sense for Sun to adopt OSGi as the container model of choice."

Mark Little
on Jul 13, 2007
Culture & Methods

How To: Live and Learn with Retrospectives

Traditional SDLCs say how interactions within a team and between teams should happen; a prescription that doesn't always fit or isn't followed consistently. Rachel Davies explains how retrospectives allow teams to improve their processes by reviewing past events and brainstorming new ideas, and shows how to facilitate a retrospective for your team.

Rachel Davies
on May 31, 2007
SOA and Agile: Friends or Foes?

SOA aims at making the entire enterprise agile by using services as the building blocks for applications. Agile software development aims at making organizations agile by introducing practices that increase communication and feedback. Which is right? Which is better? Are we comparing apples and oranges? Can they be used together, and if so, how? Join us in the discussion!

Amr Elssamadisy
on Apr 14, 2007
TDD with Selenium and Castle

Dan Bunea shows developers how TDD can be applied in .NET using Selenium RC and Castle. Test first principals provide architects a way to quickly jump into active development early in the application development lifecycle. The benefits of TDD are a drastic reduction in defects as well as increased flexibility in the code base since the application evolves quickly through an iterative process.

Dan Bunea
on Feb 20, 2007
Interview: Using Agile for SOA

Recently, Digital Focus documented their experience using Agile to tackle SOA for Federal Home Loan Banks. The incremental approach included adopting an SOA platform that could grow as the SOA application portfolio grew, and getting frequent feedback from customers and developers. InfoQ interviewed both the client and the author of the experience report on the project, and business-IT alignment.

Deborah Hartmann Preuss
on Dec 04, 2006
Adopting Agile Development Practices: Using Patterns to Share our Experiences

Agile adoption often proves challenging. Participants at a recent OpenSpace event focused on the dynamics of adoption rather than the structure that results from adoption. The resulting patterns are part of an effort to compile Agile adoption patterns answering: "What specific practices should I adopt?", "How can I adopt incrementally?" and "Where can I expect pitfalls?"

Amr Elssamadisy
on Nov 06, 2006