Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Twenty days later...

I just couldn't wait the whole 28 days as in the movie 28 Days Later..., which is getting a sequel called 28 Weeks Later.

It has been twenty days since my last blog entry. Partly that's because I'm terribly lazy, partly because I've been traveling and partly because I'm terrific at coming up with excuses.

I celebrated my birthday with spontaneous Irish music, which was a complete surprise to me and absolutely a blast! The boys from SMDF were there, of course, but then there were a couple of real Irishmen playing the banjo and guitar.

I've tried to use most of my spare time for writing the few pieces under construction; a conference paper, an article and my book. The content for www.tick-the-code.com also needs to be written, there are some translations that would need to be done, but as I said, I can come up with excuses for not writing anything.

I've also been ticking daily some thousand lines of open source code for my conference paper. I haven't analysed the results yet, I'm sure they will be interesting.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Tilaa on vielä

Ilmoittautumisvastaava on kertonut minulle, että Tampereen avoimille QuickTick-kursseille mahtuu vielä osanottajia. Ilmoittautumiset käsitellään saapumisjärjestyksessä, joten kiirehdi ohjelmistosuunnittelija, jos haluat oppia jotain hyödyllistä uutta.

---

I don't think I have mentioned it here yet, but I'm finally taking guitar lessons for real. I've owned an acoustic guitar for quite some years and now my bookshelf is heavily weighed down by all kinds of "learn to play guitar" books. Now for the first time, a real guitar player is showing me how to do it. We've started with note reading, which is an extremely important basic skill and doing it quickly enough will not happen unless I practice often and disciplined enough. This is once again a chance for me to show that with discipline you can do almost anything. Talent isn't everything. You are not locked to what you know and can, you can always learn new things. All you need is time, motivation, a burning desire and the skill, which you'll get through practice.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Open courses in Tampere!

I've sent out invitations for 4 open QuickTick sessions in May in Tampere. Further details can be found (in Finnish) on the main page.

---

Kutsuja toukokuun neljään avoimeen QuickTick-tilaisuuteen on lähetetty. Kutsu on avoin kaikille, runsasta osallistumista toivotaan. Ohjelmistosuunnittelijat, nyt on tilaisuutenne osoittaa kiinnostusta uudenlaista laadunvarmistusta kohtaan! Tampereella tavataan toukokuussa.

Jos tunnet ohjelmistosuunnittelijoita, jotka eivät tunne Tick-the-Code -menetelmää vielä, välitä heille kaikin mokomin tämä kutsu. Kiitos välittämisestä.

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Holistic Software Development

Sometimes it is hard to see why others can't see what Tick-the-Code can do. It isn't a silver bullet, instead it is very practical. On other moments it is clear that if you too much on your plate, an unusual solution isn't what you want. You want what you think you need. But the problem is that if you're under a lot of pressure, you'll reach THE WRONG CONCLUSIONS. You only think you need something, and the right kind of answer remains out of your reach. That's then my job to get across. To make you change your mind and make you want to learn Tick-the-Code.

This is the so called Holistic Approach to Software Quality. Everything depends on everything else. That means that complicated source code negatively influences all other aspects of software development, just like bad requirements will make the software product turn out bad. The nice thing is that less complex code will POSITIVELY influence everything else. And Tick-the-Code is a practical and feasible way of making source code less complex.

How? Well, if software is less complex, errors don't happen so often. Software isn't so brittle, it won't break so easily in maintenance. When maintenance becomes faster and more reliable, it can be done with confidence. There is no reason to rush oneself. You can confidently make any change that's necessary and take your time in doing it. With the improved confidence, you can cultivate the quality attitude, which means you realise that perfection needs Time, Skill, Motivation and Knowledge. Once maintenance is reliable and fast, the saved time can be used to polish the requirements or work on the design process, if those are problematic. Once they improve, there's even more time to use on user interface design, which means the produced software products will be easier to use and they sell better than old kind of clumsy software solutions. That's where the time Tick-the-Code saves you turns into money. Tick-the-Code can turn the negative cycle into a positive one.

Tick-the-Code turns busyness back to business!

---

Suomeksi:
Tick-the-Code voi olla se ensimmäinen askel kääntämään aina vain kiristyvän paineen syöksykierteen positiiviseksi koko ajan parantuvaksi kierteeksi. Se tapahtuu holistisen eli kokonaisvaltaisen ohjelmistokehityksen näkemyksen kautta. Kaikki vaikuttaa kaikkeen. Huonot vaatimukset tekevät tuotteesta huonon ja monimutkainen koodi vaikuttaa negatiivisesti kaikkeen muuhun. Kun Tick-the-Code poistaa monimutkaisuutta, vähenevät virheet ja ylläpito nopeutuu. Se myös muuttuu luotettavammaksi. Mitä muutetaankin, se pysyy muutettuna. Kehittäjien itseluottamus kasvaa ja heillä on enemmän aikaa käyttää esimerkiksi vaatimusten hiomiseen tai suunnitteluprosessin parantamiseen. Kunhan ne ovat kunnossa, voidaankin keskittyä esimerkiksi käyttöliittymäsuunnitteluun. Paremmin suunnitellut tuotteet ovat helppokättöisempiä ja myyvät paremmin.

Tällä tavalla Tick-the-Code muuttaa kiireen rahaksi.

---

Auf Deutsch:
Tick-the-Code kann die erste Schritt sein um eine negative Zyklus positiv zu machen. Es passiert wenn man Softwareentwicklung holistisch oder umfassend betrachtet. Alles beeinflusst alles andere. Schlechte Softwareanforderungen produzieren schlechte Software und komplizierter Quellcode beeinflusst alles negativ. Wenn Tick-the-Code Komplexität entfernt, werden Fehler weniger und Wartung wird schneller. Wartung wird auch zuverlässiger und das erhöht das Selbstvertrauen der Entwickler. Die werden auch mehr Zeit haben für die Anforderungen oder die Entwurfsprozess zu verbessern. Wenn die in Ordnung sind, kann man sich an Benutzeroberfläche konzentrieren. Produkte werden praktischer und einfacher zu bedienen. Die verkaufen auch besser.

So verwandelt Tick-the-Code Geschäftigkeit ins Geschäft.