technology rules

I just got home from NFJS in Reston. The tech lead on my team suggested it, and I thought They have Dave Hussman? Sweet. and was in. Going with a Java dude to a post-Java event is a good time. I wonder how long before he’s a post-Java dude. Probably not long at all.

So. About me. I got some useful perspectives – especially on team and project start-up, a thing I love – both from Hussman and from Stu Halloway (who threatened to cry more than once as he got started; don’t mess with that man). I learned Scrum in a non-software context. It totally works that way. With software teams, though, I’m increasingly convinced that the elements of craft contained in XP and just plain good development practices also need to be encoded in your agile startup. Their collective commonsense list of development and architecture-oriented points is totally going in my startup toolkit. Thanks, guys.

I’m not at the point Hussman seems to have arrived at, where any selection of agile practices is good. I mean, yes, some agile practices (the daily coordination meeting, for instance) are good in almost any context; others, though, make more sense within a whole. Scrum works as a whole. Teams can change what they do after they learn Scrum, but for many corporate folk, the shift to agility is so profound that a codified set of practices is needed at first. Then mindsets start to shift, and they either end up in “Scrum, but” (that is, they fall back into old habits) or “Scrum, and” (they discover additional practices that fit their particular work). Start with “Scrum, but”, though, and you may never change minds. You’ll get results. Some, at least. “Scrum, but” is okay. I didn’t join this party for okay, though. I thought we came here to rock.

Anyhow. Yeah, Hussman briefly argued that the notion of “Scrum, but” essentially alienates practitioners. Too liberally applied (eg to “Scrum, and” shops), maybe. Applied in a jerk-like fashion, When Scrum Practitioners Attack style, sure. I’d still argue that people want to be told what is and isn’t big-a Agile or Scrum. Because they want these better ways of working, and they want to know if they’re getting there. Sure, what matters most is that we deliver and our lives get better in the process. But it’s nice to know you’re headed the right direction.

As much as I just talked about the agile track, the single most exciting thing was Brian Sletten’s series on the semantic web. Dude. That is some really simple stuff with some mind-bogglingly awesome potential. I rarely write code for the web these days (I suspect I couldn’t, without weeks and months of practice and retraining), but I use and create plenty of content. And as a user/creator/participant, I want everyone to get busy on this kickass semantic thing, like yesterday. Tomorrow morning, I expect related content to all be mapped together.

Alright. So it might be awhile. But it’s going to be pretty effing awesome when it gets here.