Snippets of Wisdom from the Calgary QTB

From the Thoughtworks Calgary QTB trial run — the night before with Martin Fowler and Scott Shaw.

» Difficulty in the business talking to IT is partially because of the physical segregation of the two departments.

» Software is a craftsmanship and developing software is purely a design activity. Junior developers learn from working / coding with experienced designers — the passing on of the craft.

» Simplicity is something that must be learned.

» True software craftsmen are able to pick the right tool for the job — whether it be Java, C++, C — this is the benefit of being a Polyglot Programmer. When programmers are allowed to use the right tool for the job they are able to get the job done quickly — rather than standardization for standardization sake.

» The Monolithic Funding Model allows the releasing software in sets of minimal pieces that each have business value and revenue justification.

» Most features on deployed applications are not used. By bringing user experience in during the iterative life cycle we’re assured of getting features that will be used and eliminate waste in the development process.

» Domain driven design is the act of bringing business language into software development. The tying together of business and development is an idea that requires an active effort in development because you need a language that is rigorous and doesn’t have the ambiguity of regular language. This allows business analysts and developers to talk.

» Developing a common language is not something that you can do at the beginning of a project; only after spending a year together do you find the core language. The result is a good communication structure. You know a common language has developed when you can write business code and talk to business people about this code.

» IT as we know it today is creating impediments. Investments are being made in technology but businesses are not seeing returns. In the future we can see IT moving into the business; the functions of pure IT are shrinking.