Patrick – Spicy Cajun Software

Atlanta Code Camp 2014 Slides

Patrick October 11, 2014June 3, 2021process

Thanks, everyone for attending my session today. We had a great discussion, and I hope you found it helpful. Here are the slides.

I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.

Patrick September 2, 2012June 3, 2021processdiscipline, growth, learning

When’s the last time you admitted to being wrong? That’s the last time you learned something. And it was probably an important lesson. Much of what we stuff into our memories throughout our life is assumption. Other stuff applies at one time, but likely doesn’t apply now. Insisting we “know” something is usually just clinging to our assumptions. And as my father told me: you know what happens when you assume, right? Other times, insisting we are right is also pretty much … Continue reading “I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.”

“If You Don’t Transform, You’re Stuck”

Patrick May 23, 2012June 3, 2021processdiscipline

How have you transformed to adapt to the changing world? I had the fortune of hearing Xerox CEO Ursula Burns in an NPR interview this morning: “If You Don’t Transform, You’re Stuck.” Burns saved Xerox from failure and irrelevance by transforming the company. Not only is Xerox surviving, it’s thriving. Xerox is an example of what applies to every company, ever: “what got you here won’t get you there.” That is to say, the things that brought you (and your company) … Continue reading ““If You Don’t Transform, You’re Stuck””

Google+ and fear of failure

Patrick June 30, 2011June 3, 2021Asideprocessdiscipline

I’ve only spent 5 minutes with it, so I can’t speak to how strong of a social networking offering Google+ is. But I can say: what impresses me most is that Google is publicly proving that they are not afraid of failure. How many attempts has “the Goog” made at social networking? Wave, Buzz and Orkut, at least. And those are the ones that were released publicly. Google Wave came and went pretty recently; they didn’t wait to try again. … Continue reading “Google+ and fear of failure”

Helplessness and Inaction

Patrick January 20, 2011June 3, 2021AsideUncategorizedprocess

The following was included in a tweet from Esther Derby (via Will Sansbury), and it struck me as poignant today. Thought I’d share what I found when I asked the goog: “Inaction stems from a state of helplessness. Helplessness enshrines the defensive routine in a place of permanence.” William R. Noonan – Discussing the Undiscussable I have now added this book to my reading list.

Craftsmanship Kerfluffle

Patrick January 19, 2011June 3, 2021AsideUncategorized

Have you been following the “Craftsmanship” kerfluffle? You should. Here’s a lot of what’s been said, for my own ease of sharing: Dan North’s original post, that stirred the hornet’s nest. Martin Fowler’s take (with links to many other responses) (review his links at the bottom, first). I don’t have anything useful (or even pithy) to add yet, but I will say I’m thrilled to see so much passion and (so far) level-headed debate, discussion and discovery going on.

Real Agile Genius Videos

Patrick January 15, 2011June 3, 2021Uncategorized

2 years ago, I made a video with the Dev team at VersionOne, to seed an “Agile Advert” contest for the 2008 Agile Conference. That video was… Mr Hit-and-Run Build Breaker The one that started it all [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuPFz5deXOw] It so well received, we eventually got around to making a follow-up. This time, we made one to coincide with VersionOne’s release of the Analytics (custom reporting) feature: Mr Metrics Drill Sergeant [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeDJaIoRRYc] A few months ago, we finally made the ‘series … Continue reading “Real Agile Genius Videos”

Work More Effectively From Home

Patrick January 12, 2011June 3, 2021Uncategorized

If you’re like me, you don’t work from home that often. While I work mostly on my computer, I do collaborate a whole lot, so it’s not typical (I’m a software developer). Or perhaps you’ve never done it. However, there are days where I can’t go to the office, and it is advantageous to be able to be productive from home. Here are a few lessons I’ve learned (mostly the hard way). Ahead of time: Equipment Prepare by getting a … Continue reading “Work More Effectively From Home”

Multi-Project (Portable) Areas Walkthrough

Patrick May 6, 2010April 17, 2021codeaspnetmvc, c#, example 17 Comments

With MVC2, the MVC team introduced Areas, a way to decompose and organize a large MVC application into smaller sub-applications. The guys who work on MvcContrib built on top of this the concept of Portable Areas. The Asp.NET site has an intro video on Areas here. Eric Hexter gives a good overview of portable areas here, and he talks about it with Jeffrey Palermo on the Polymorphic Podcast here. Eric and Jeffery wrote pretty thorough walkthroughs of portable areas, but they’ve since … Continue reading “Multi-Project (Portable) Areas Walkthrough”

A Concept Falls in the Woods…

Patrick December 9, 2009codeengineering

If a concept in your software is not actually represented in your code, does it really exist? As a simplistic example, if your customer or user thinks of your application in terms of “notes”, but there is no code that describes anything called a “note”, that concept is not represented in your code. One significant thing an agile development team can do to make a code base more agile (supple) is to ensure that there is a high degree of … Continue reading “A Concept Falls in the Woods…”