Peopleware and The Front Office

Written by Sander Monday, 04 October 2010 11:11

A decade is a long time in software development, especially in enlightened software development. Ten years ago, the eXtreme Programming book had just been written and the nascent Agile movement was yet to write its founding manifesto. A dozen years after first being published, Peopleware – Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister was already a good year into its second edition. Now, in 2010, it is no less relevant than it was when originally published.

In Defence of Moving Forward

Written by Jamie Friday, 27 August 2010 11:21

What it comes to, finally, is that the nation has spent a large part of its time and energy looking away from one of the principal facts of its life. This failure to look reality in the face diminishes a nation as it diminishes a person.
Baldwin, ‘Nobody Knows My Name’.

Triangle

Written by Jamie Wednesday, 18 August 2010 15:44

Financial Agile is not just a web-site, it’s a community of people, based in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and London, who care about how the industry evolves.  One thing we do is coach junior financial engineers.  For example, recently I have been teaching two fellows, Vlad and Paul, and together they are looking at the triangle problem.  They both want to learn the full range of skills they need to effectively do their jobs.  Programming; test-driven-development; object-oriented design; principled negotiation; systems thinking; etc.  Jumping from a course in C# to TDD with mocks à la Freeman and Pryce is too much.  Yet, TDD with mocks à la Freeman and Pryce is a skill that all competent financial engineers have to master.