Undisciplined Software Development

When I was overseas in Asia I had an opportunity to observe some "undisciplined software development".

I think it is a cultural issue.  The project is driven top-down by money (as it is with western software development), but by the time it gets to the project manager, the project is pretty much "results-driven".  The faster the developers can produce results, the better.

This leads to basically hacks.  Hack this and hack that to create results.  Don't worry too much about bugs - create results first and fix bugs later.

When a new customer wants something that is somewhat similar to your old product for an existing customer, copy and paste the entire source code branch and make your changes in the new folder hierarchy.  It all sounds incredibly to me, but I think I view it as a problem with the project management.  The project team doesn't understand values in terms of zero-defect programming, test-driven programming, maintainability.

I believe they would do well to migrate to an agile-based development, but it must be driven top down from the project management and preached to the developers.  Some of the ideas are so foreign that I'd even imagine resistance from the developers.

jliu

My register lost johnliu.net domain and didn't even tell me

I don't know if I had blogged this before, anyway, I've owned johnliu.net for a couple of years.  In 2006, It expired into redemption period (because I've changed email and didn't follow my old email address, my bad).  But I was able to save it in time.

In 2007, it again expired, but this time I received no email notification from the domain register.

They were not able to re-secure my domain, so now it's parked by some evil domain squatter.

The register gave me john-liu.net for free.  But it sucks when you can't trust your register to remind you that your domain is expiring.  (The same register seem to send me a lot of spam mail promoting their SEO technology).

I think this year, I'm going to go for an external host and have john-liu.net redirected there.  I'll probably keep using spaces for blogging.

Update on 2009-05-19 13:52 by JohnLiu.NET

Hey didn't you lose your johnliu.net - how did you get it back?

The trick is to not advertise your website.

You see, when I had johnliu.net I tried hosting my own blog, CMS, Wiki...  but the server I used at home was a bit on the crap side and I always suspected that script kiddies are out there hacking my machine at home.

At the end, I just leave that machine off for long stretches of time.  All requests to that server automatically fails.

I still held the domain, but it never lead to anywhere.  
It even fell off google.  (this actually was a bigger lost I feel at the time)

So because no one was really visiting the site, when the squatters got it - they didn't keep it after the intial (I assume 'free' period).  They let it expire, and my register was able to lock it and hold it for me.

In summary, I got lucky.

Now that I'm more serious about the domain again - I better not let it expire like last time.

December 2007

Is gone.  Lina and I went to New Zealand for a visit, with our unborn child (the little guy is probably sleeping through the whole trip). 

I don't know if I expected NZ to change a lot, I feel it changed, but not much.  One Tree Hill is no more, there is no tree now, and the whole place is just the Park Summit.

No more George Pie.

Auckland Grammar School has about 4 or 5 more buildings which is kind of crazy.

My old place is still there, but it's now inhabited by strangers who has planted new and strange plants in the garden.

The road to Cape Reinga is being resurfaced and they've removed the shop (and the post office).  There is a mail box though, but stuck between two Portable-Loos it's just not the same.

We still had heaps of fun.  Thanks NZ.

jliu

Using Windows Live Writer now

After a bit of hiccups with installing windows live (the live version) as opposed to the beta I was using.  I'm glad to report that it is now working properly (as this post should hopefully prove).

Why should I specialize? Why should you specialize?

Was asked over a company coffee thing.
"Oh you are interested in WPF"
"Yea"
"What are you planning to do with it?"
"Eh?"
"What is your next step?"

I was caught unprepared.  I've always seen myself as expert in anything I want to do.  Why not?  Why limit yourself to one technology tree?  What happens when that technology is a dead-end?
I've done Java, and now I'm sold on .NET.
I've done both Windows Forms and Web Forms.
I've done SQL Server 2000, 2008...
Part of the reason I've never been convinced of SharePoint.  Initially it was this portal system.  Then it seemed to compete with ASP.NET 2.0.  After a while... it got bundled into everything: Microsoft Office SharePoint.
Perhaps there is someone really high up in Microsoft that refuses to let it die.

There always seem to be these people (Evangelists) that seemed to know everything there is to know, about everything.
How do you go about becoming one of those?

Anyway, I can see the company's point of view.  Master of One Trade is easier to sell (and train) than Jack of All Trades.

But I still feel if I had to abandon any one of my many interests, it'd be like cutting my arm off :-(

jliu