Kelley Marsh

I make things better. I amuse myself in the meantime.

Category: Development

  • Product Maintenance

    Ah, product maintenance: Programmers: a short story (high quality: http://t.co/2H8JT49H23 ) pic.twitter.com/ewu6phQxb8 — Melissa (@0xabad1dea) May 22, 2014 Working with talented people who are constantly learning is amazing. Thinking that every piece of code that is even slightly aged is incorrect or wrong is not as amazing. Compromise is a skill. And not one that…

  • Master the basics first

    Very good advice: Until you can reliably deliver what you thought you could deliver, focus on how you define and build software. You don’t need Lean or Kanban or to improve your stand-up meeting. You need to learn how to define, build, and deliver software. Don’t be distracted by nuance if you can’t get the…

  • The cost of gaining knowledge

    Somewhat cynical, but amusing: Every programmer starts out writing some perfect little snowflake like this. Then they’re told on Friday they need to have six hundred snowflakes written by Tuesday, so they cheat a bit here and there and maybe copy a few snowflakes and try to stick them together or they have to ask…

  • Regulating development

    An interesting post on the Ken Schwaber blog: Our  shortcomings were surprising to me. When I rolled out Scrum, I thought that the excellent developers that had been stifled by waterfall processes would emerge, and we would again do great work and build great software. Much to my surprise, many never had those skills or had…

  • Being proud of ugly babies

    Every once in a while, we finish something we think is awesome. Shiny. Spectacular. Perfect in every way. A tiny little flawless newborn code-baby, clearly demanding your adoration and unbounded love. And then the client doesn’t like it. “Take that head off,” they say. “Paste it to the stomach, and then put both arms on…