From spellfecker today:
Certifiction (n.) : a professional endorsement which states only that the holder had the money to pay for the exam.
...which reminded me of this debate, particularly the first comment.
QCon: TODO list inspired by the conference
(Updated 15 Dec 2020 with correct completed status!)
Investigate Maven 2 for buildsHave a glance at TestNG unit testing(completed 2013)Potentially play with JMock for current testing framework(completed ~2009)Play with GWT.(completed 2009-2013)Sign up for Pragmatic Architect event- Check out JavaBlackBelt site - what is provided, and what are the feelings of professionals (or, more importantly, recruiters) towards these qualifications?
Look into getting Visual Studio .NET again so you can have a go at GUI development in it.(completed 2011)- Go to technorati.
Investigate JUnit 4 changes/improvements.
(Update: 15 Dec 2020: Huh. I did OK with these over the following decade...)
Continuing the Agile froth…
...there are a number of points in this interview with Paul Oldfield which are interesting to consider when thinking about "doing Agile right". It seems to be compatible with my "people over process" view - I'm not stating that having good people negates the need for any form of process or discipline, I have seen that this is simply not the case. I do however think that agile techniques in particular rely heavily upon the "right" people / team, for some nebulous definition of "right".
QCon: Initial thoughts
Things I took out of QCon:
- I want to play with Ajax. Maybe I've "grown out" of front end development but that doesn't prevent it from being (potentially) extremely cool
- Selenium looks like a good place to start for automated website testing
- It can take up to 7 years to move away from a legacy architecture. Depressing, but at least it shows it can be done and it's worth the effort
- I'm going to become a certified Scrum
MasterMistress. I believe Agile in some form or other is the most efficient way to run software development, but there are a LOT of lessons to learn in order to get it right. And number one lesson is you need the right team.
QCon London
Last week saw the first QCon London conference, an event "designed with the technical depth and enterprise focus of interest to technical team leads, architects, and project managers".
The conference consisted of two days of tutorials followed by three days of talks covering technologies, vendor products, and processes. In addition there were numerous "networking" opportunities with plenty of break times to both absorb information and meet other people, plus evening events.
The conference was both comprehensive and absorbing, and I'm hoping to take the next few days to filter through the notes I have taken and present a more succinct version here. Whether it will be of use to anyone other than myself remains to be seen...