tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-92517852009-07-05T10:43:06.780-05:00Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.comBlogger398125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-90526585181433940712009-06-22T22:08:00.002-05:002009-06-22T22:29:16.878-05:00

Recently there has been an explosion of "Open Space" events and sessions at conferences across the world. Suprisingly (or not-so-suprisingly) the results of these aren't always this wonderful touchy-feely explosion of experience and sharing that open space events are made out to be. Why is that?First, there are actually two types of events labeled in the "Open Space" realm:A big open space with a

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-75666101346202590822009-06-16T11:13:00.001-05:002009-06-16T11:13:34.052-05:00

Our application supports both SQL and Oracle users. To do this, there are certain things that we need present at runtime - like an Oracle Provider. But, in our case, we require a certain version or higher due to the API calls we need to make. During testing for our upcoming release, we found a bug where if someone tried to create a connection to an Oracle database, and didn't have the Oracle

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-2400521201601393372009-06-10T21:49:00.002-05:002009-06-11T10:09:49.829-05:00

To many people, software projects are a lot like black magic. You are trying to build something that no one knows the contents of until it's been built, in a way that responds to change, in some semblance of a reasonable timeframe and budget. Everything from the estimation process, to the status calls, to the change control, to the releases themselves vary so wildly that we actually applaud when

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-85752142448565621702009-05-08T00:00:00.002-05:002009-05-08T00:11:20.223-05:00

Hi All,Over the past couple of weeks, there has been some hubub over a letter that went out from the Scrum Alliance to their user groups. This letter let to an announcement that the Orlando Scrum User Group was closing. This led to a posting I did on the Scrum Development list. This in turn culminated in a phone meeting with Jim Cundiff, the managing director for the Scrum Alliance, and a

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-65017520528850157122009-05-03T21:48:00.002-05:002009-05-03T21:52:37.133-05:00

I was recently building an app which needed to take advantage of versioning. I liked the look of acts_as_versioned, which is a nice add-on to Rails to versions models.However, the tutorial-fu is pretty sparse, and what is out there is pretty old, so I wanted to write up what it took to get it running for me.Step 1 - The basicsFirst, create a new Rails app (rails testversioning). I'm using the

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-42311845838925248302009-04-19T12:28:00.002-05:002009-04-19T12:41:33.085-05:00

Thanks again to everyone that came out to my Software Craftsmanship talk at BarCampOrlando yesterday. I had a blast, and I enjoyed talking with so many of you throughout the day about moving forward with becoming craftsmen in your own organizations.Here are some resources I talked about or listed in the slides:Agile ManifestoSoftware Craftsmanship ManifestoSoftware Craftsmanship Mailing

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-15765324832370944042009-04-19T06:25:00.002-05:002009-04-19T06:29:38.885-05:00

"Bob, we need to talk. I've been reviewing the check-in histories, and Steve hasn't bothered to check in anything in the past 6 days. When he does check-in, his quality is just utter crap. I don't know what happened, but I'm tired of dealing with him and his slack attitude."We've all had team members that are hard to deal with. In my last post I mentioned that we need to respect our other team

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-26930646593554505162009-04-09T06:17:00.002-05:002009-04-09T06:23:55.837-05:00

Some exciting news from the Day of Ruby event - in addition to the Tampa Day of Ruby being held on May 16th (which has 1/3rd of the slots gone already - so sign up quick!), I'm excited to announce that we'll be holding an Orlando Day of Ruby on May 30th!Both events are totally free events targeted at .NET, Java and PHP developers who have been wanting to get their hands on with Ruby, Rails, RSpec

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-21527354079189192232009-04-01T22:22:00.002-05:002009-04-01T22:35:43.379-05:00

One thing that has always amazed me is the giant leaps we take in organizations to protect the salary information of others. Even telling another employee your own salary is a firable offense in some companies - much less finding out what everyone makes.I'm a firm believer in things like Maverick and SEMCO where Ricardo Semler turned the organization upside down by opening just about everything

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-85194118347403279452009-03-31T22:41:00.002-05:002009-03-31T22:44:18.266-05:00

With all the hubbub around the World Agile Qualification Boards and other certifications, I wanted to make sure that teams were getting the most out of their capabilities. So I've created the Agile Object-Oriented Maturity Model Certification. You can get all the details at the site. Sign up today!

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-69109297232232899132009-03-25T23:09:00.003-05:002009-03-25T23:31:56.746-05:00

Steven List asks if Retrospectives are an antipattern. The question actually came from Chris Matts, and was a point I agreed with - the more mature a team, the less likely they will need formalized retrospectives. To explain more, check out Patrick Kua's Model for Understanding Retrospective Impact. The key thing that struck me is how I envision teams working in that model. let's say we divide it

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-27920097704343189302009-03-19T01:31:00.004-05:002009-03-19T08:40:08.748-05:00

Respect is perhaps one of the most fundamental tenets of any team. Before a team can even begin to address the 5 Dysfunctions, they must learn to respect each other. Fundamentally, there are two different meanings for respect - one being a reverence for a particular person. For example, we may have significant respect for our parents, or our mentors, or those who have accomplished much - for

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-43197758783593451762009-03-01T21:52:00.002-05:002009-03-01T21:55:37.597-05:00

Everything is now finalized for the first Day of Ruby event, which will be held May 16th in Tampa, FL. This is a free event for anyone interested in getting hands on with Ruby and Rails (especially .NET and Java developers). For all of the details, and to register, head over to http://tampa.dayofruby.com or follow us on Twitter at DayOfRuby. See you there!

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-40307052154019931872009-02-27T00:19:00.002-05:002009-02-27T00:30:54.298-05:00

A couple of cool going-ons over the next several weeks:On Monday, March 2nd, David J. Anderson will be in Tampa for one day. We're going to do a get-together in the evening, so if you are interested, let me know via email (foyc at this blog) or on Twitter at cory_foy. David is putting together the Lean Kanban Conference coming up in Miami May 6th-8thBarCampOrlando is April 18th in sunny Orlando,

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-70747983327483164592009-02-18T23:08:00.002-05:002009-02-18T23:11:16.002-05:00

In my overview post on this series, I used the term discipline, and still believe in that term. Some people commented that it may be confusing, since there are so many ways we think of and talk about discipline. The easiest way to explain it is with this awesome quote from The Fifth Discipline:The way to begin developing a sense of personal mastery is to approach it as a discipline, as a series

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-53539376035876992202009-02-13T00:23:00.004-05:002009-03-19T02:03:36.382-05:00

In my last post on discipline, I discuss disciplines as being the thing that kicks in when motivation fails you. More importantly, I state that there are specific disciplines which I believe apply across software developers wishing to be better at what they do. In doing research for this topic, I came across many references to this same concept in the martial arts world. Some interesting ideas

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-55472413810906065072009-02-08T22:41:00.001-05:002009-02-10T00:14:15.520-05:00

On Friday, I got the opportunity to attend the excellent acts_as_conference right here in Florida (over in Orlando). The conference is a one-track Ruby conference that had about 130 attendees show up. I was excited by both the schedule and the attendees, and though I was only able to attend on Friday, I wasn't disappointed. The conference opened up with the Rails Envy guys doing a talk on Rails

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-22512290032492589962009-01-27T23:54:00.004-05:002009-01-28T00:21:06.960-05:00

What does discipline mean to you? Looking at the definition from Merriam-Webster Dictionary, it could mean:punishment(obsolete) instructiona field of studytraining that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral charactercontrol gained by enforcing obedience or orderorderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behaviorself-controla rule or system of rules governing conduct or

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-41052471541948828702009-01-25T23:27:00.002-05:002009-01-25T23:42:46.348-05:00

At the recent TDD Firestarter event here in Tampa, a second issue came up in the reviews - namely why we chose to use NUnit over MSTest (given that it was held in an Microsoft office). Several reasons came up - cost (MSTest requires Visual Studio Pro), integration (MSTest requires Visual Studio to be installed on your build server to run tests as part of a CI build), and extensibility (have to

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-49137886963890514862009-01-22T23:12:00.003-05:002009-01-23T00:11:50.417-05:00

At the recent TDD Firestarter here in Tampa, a question came again that was a repeat of one from my TDD/MVC talk at Agile Tampa a couple of months back. Then, at the after-party of the Firestarter event, Joe Healy talked about needing a 10-step program for introducing TDD.I gave some thought to this, and even outlined steps. But my mind kept going back to that question. The very strange question.

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-8502396768502617642009-01-20T00:32:00.003-05:002009-01-20T00:34:08.592-05:00

This past Saturday, I got the great pleasure of hanging out at the TDD Firestarter event here in Tampa. It was great fun, and I even got to wow the crowd with demos on FitNesse, Cucumber and DBPro. I also got some decent pictures of the crowd and activities. You can see what I've uploaded on my Flickr page.

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-64596567689727128212009-01-05T21:40:00.002-05:002009-01-05T21:48:00.475-05:00

As more organizations have worked to implement agile practices, some teams have found wisdom in Lean Principles to guide them along. Some teams have even found ways to get rid of timeboxed iterations altogether and move towards Kanban - a pull based system for getting things done.If you've heard about Lean and Kanaban, or are interested in hearing more about it, and want to get away from whatever

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-31574154444656406622009-01-01T00:25:00.002-05:002009-01-19T16:34:40.694-05:00

When my wife got an Touch several months back, the first thing I wanted to do was build some applications for it. Who wouldn't want to play with a device that has accelerometers, position sensors and multi-touch gestures? But being new to the Mac world, I needed something to help guide me along. Beginning iPhone Development aims to be that guide. But does it live up to the challenge of teaching a

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-2128239965302661402008-12-09T21:09:00.002-05:002008-12-09T21:25:09.095-05:00

Ayende has a post entitled "Consenting Adults" about a recent post by David Kean on why MSFT tries to lock down their APIs.Don't get me wrong - I don't like sealed and internal classes any more than the rest of us. It does make it difficult to test and extend. I'm a TDD proponent (Green wristband and all) and I've had to deal with these classes.But, I've also been on the other side - supporting

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9251785.post-39958243960415405152008-12-08T23:24:00.002-05:002008-12-08T23:31:31.734-05:00

If you'll be around the Tampa, FL area on January 17th, 2009, come out for an awesome Day of TDD. There will be lots of great speakers including: Scott C. Reynolds Sean Chambers Cory Foy (me!) Doing a session on Acceptance-Test Driven Development Christopher Bennage Rob EisenbergYou can get all the information at the website: http://tddfirestarter.lostechies.com

Cory Foyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16623557184597571370noreply@blogger.com0