evolving development style

December 29, 2005

Over at the Laszlo Mail blog, I’ve written about a development style for the new millenium. I’ve tried to bring what-has-worked in the past into the light of new requirements and opportunities. An appropriate year-end post, I reflect on our most recent release and how our development style reflects what we’ve learned over the year, as well as old software management lessons.

That article might have appeared here as easily as there. Unexpectedly, I find myself a contributing author to four blogs (and the sole author of two of them). I don’t think having more places to publish makes me write less in each, but rather creates more reason to write. Flying Paperclips is a simple notebook of science experiments. Some notes which might otherwise have been emails or checkin notes, now are published on the OpenLaszlo weblog.

With the Laszlo Mail blog, I’m experimenting with what has been called “the obligatory development blog” of web software. I grew up writing software in an atmosphere of secrecy, where one dare not discuss development methodologies for fear of violating NDAs and revealing trade secrets to a competitor. Nowadays companies are more comfortable being open about how software is developed, or perhaps there was no danger before and my fear caused unnecessary self-censorship. In any case, I appreciate the developers who have created a well-trodden path, as I venture into this unexplored territory in my personal landscape. I’m still unsure what is a daring revelation vs. a mundane, even uninteresting detail of private software development. Every new release brings fresh challenges as well as familiar obstacles. I enjoy reading how other people go about this act of creatng and publishing software. It is fun to add my stories to the mix.

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