Blog Insights

For years, like many of you, I have been comparing software development to construction. But ever since adopting the agile methodology a decade ago, I have been looking for a better analogy to help me explain agile software development. I recently came up with what I think is that analogy...

This article explains how to use SphinxSE, Sphinx real time indexing, and set up Sphinx in order to improve search query performance.   First some background about issues surrounding full-text search. Why does someone need a full text search engine? A MySql database with over a million records will take a...

As a new employee here at Source Allies and a new user to our suite of Atlassian products, I was fortunate, and a little intimidated, to attend Atlassian's 2013 Summit. Despite my initial trepidation, I left feeling inspired by what I learned. As a project manager/business analyst, I was worried that...

I find that in software development, and also in life, people learn best within the context of painful experiences. I’m not suggesting that software development mentors go out of their way to create painful experiences for their teams. On the contrary, just start listening. It doesn’t take very long to identify...

I facilitated my own rendition of the #NoEstimates Puzzle Experiment for the September 2013 Agile Iowa user group meeting. This experiment was created by Chris Chapman to generate critical thinking and conversation concerning whether estimates are necessary to produce quality software. The meeting had a great turnout, with around 40...

Error handling is tricky. Not because it's especially hard to do, but because everyone (operations, the business team, fellow programmers) seems to have a different idea of how a particular situation should be handled. A web service is down? No problem. You should try again every five seconds, but no...

I was reminded of a profound truth as I was re-reading Robert C. Martin's book "Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices", in C# this time. In this section Uncle Bob discusses the Single Responsibility Principle (SRP), which defines that a class should have only one reason, or axis, to change...

I was able to attend the Agile 2013 conference in Nashville, TN earlier this month. I had previously attended Agile 2006 in Minneapolis, MN. There was a significant difference. At this year's conference, the overall theme seemed to be that teams needed to focus on producing value rather than following a...

Is it really possible that intense planning and the ability to respond to change can co-exist within the same development process? If you are wondering this, then you are not alone. Partners regularly ask us if Agile software development teams follow any sort of plan or are they just feel...

One of the best software development conferences you can attend is the No Fluff Just Stuff (NFJS) conference. The conference  is small and the speakers are mostly consultants working in the field.  I attended my 9th NFJS conference this year, and as always, came away with some great information that...