Category: Software engineering

Pitfall: Not recognizing the politics of architecture »

[From Pitfalls of Modern Software Engineering by Bruce F. Webster (forthcoming)]
CATEGORIES: political, architectural, managerial
While discussing the challenges of software development with Taligent trainer Tom Affinito back in the mid-1990s, I mentioned — citing Fred Brooks — the need for a chief architect. Tom immediately responded, “Yes, and ultimately architecture is a political act.”
That observation has [...]

Shades of Denver »

The opening of Terminal 5 at London Heathrow Airport has not been without problems, to say the least. And one of the specific problems appears to be the automated baggage handling system:
…the computer-operated baggage system has crashed and luggage is now being sorted manually before being loaded on to planes.
Twelve return flights to short-haul destinations [...]

When IT systems failure is not an option »

Here’s an interesting story over at Physorg.com about the IT project supporting the 2008 Olympics in Beijing:
Atos Origin is the information technology partner for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with the job of designing, building and operating the invisible IT infrastructure that supplies results, events and athlete information to the media, spectators and the world.
It [...]

Pitfall: Thinking a new technology or methodology will solve all your IT problems »

[From Pitfalls of Modern Software Engineering by Bruce F. Webster (forthcoming)]
CATEGORIES: organizational, conceptual
The software development process–creating software to solve a particular problem–is long and complex and has many activities and stages. The exact list will vary depending on what book or article you read but can generally be said to include the following:

becoming aware of [...]

Developers and SQA »

I’ve written a post over at my other website on why software engineers should spend time working in software quality assurance on a regular basis. ..bruce w..