Experiences with the MS Visual Studio Team System

In my job I'm currently evaluating the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System. It is a suite of tools integrating with the Visual Studio and supports the development in a team. Beside the central Team Foundation Server it contains four editions for Software Architects, Software Developers, Database Developers, and Software Testers. So each one gets an almost complete toolset while all together use the server for collaboration. This one uses work items of different types, like requirements, issues, and risks, to organize the work. Code changes can be assigned to those work items so that everything is traceable. Additionally SharePoint for own project portals is part of the server, it is integrated into the development environment. Together with the ability of lots of reports the developer gets a rich toolset.

I'm no great fan of Mircosoft. I'm using an Apple and programming in Smalltalk in private. But the VSTS is really a nice system. Especially compared to the IBM WebSphere Application Developer, which I've used the last 3.5 years. Maybe I should develop such a collaboration suite for VisualWorks.

Usage of the Lightweight Application Server

After some questions about how the Tideland Lightweight Application Server has to be used I've added a small documentation in our wiki.

Importance of Requirements Engineering and Software Cost Estimation

Once again I've read about a software project which underestimated the importance of a continuous requirements engineering together with a calibrated software cost estimation. And once again this underestimation led to problems with the calculated budget. The result has been a higher pressure on the developers and a lower quality due to less testing.

This could be astonishing if this kind of problem is totally new. But it happens since years and years again. And only few are learning from those problems. It's known a long time that customers and developers don't know all requirements from the start, that the requirements are changing 2 to 3 percent each month, that the number of rrequirements is growing if it isn't priorized and controlled, that the deviation of the first estimation is very large and a calibration over the time is needed, and that developers often only esitmate their work which is only a relative small part of a complete software project.

Maybe some of the unexperienced project managers read this.

For German readers: Article about Squeak/Seaside

The today published iX magazine contains an article about Squeak and Seaside startiing at page 136. It is my third Smalltalk article in this magazine and I'll try to publish it on the ESUG pages again later.

Tideland Application Stack

The Tideland Net Business Framework (NBF) is moving towards the internal alpha tests. So I would like to show you an overview of the Tideland Application Stack here.

It shows how web applications use the NBF for web controllers and rendering, the business logic is developed as stateful and stateless components and asynchronous services in the LAS, and the persistent model is stored using the SOS. All frameworks use, as the future applications may do also, the CSL with helpful classes.

The NBF will contain the Webtop API. It provides an easy to use framework for web-based application. I'll show you some prototype screenshots soon.

Wii success

Since last thursday we've got our early easter present for the year: a Nintendo Wii. Until then we didn't had a console and only my kids are playing games on the computer. But allready the next day we've had aching muscels. And since then we've been playing almost every evening. We don't watch TV, we're creating it. *smile*

Asking my wife if she could have imagine this one year ago she negated it. So I asked, why she now has so much fun. The answer was quite simple: You don't just sitting on your sofa pressing buttons on a controller. Instead you've got to make real moves.

So the secret behind the Wii success isn't just a controller with a motion sensor. But the controller - together with the nunchuck - are designed for playing games with motion. And more and more games will support that. No high-end graphics, no blue-ray disc, but a cheap price paired with a real innovative idea of how to control the games, that's it.

P.S.: I'm really looking forward to play the games online with other Wii owners.

Discovering Smalltalk

It's allways the same when Smalltalkers talk to users of other, typical C-style programming languages. As long as there are just the words class, object or method they have a relative common understanding. But when we are talking about sending messages to objects or submitting changes into the living image they don't understand. At this point Smalltalk is a totally different world. This experience has been described here and commented here.

I've also tried to write about this, online and in articles. But it is really not easy to communicate this real great advantage of Smalltalk, this secret of why developing in Smalltalk is so productive. It seems that my next entries about this language and environment have to be focussed on those differences.