...my blog will be moving to http://quinert.com/blog. Hopefully I will not be lost in the ether.

Michael Bolton talks about the perils of simplicity in XP, especially when it comes to defining the word 'work'.

I've shared some 'perils of XP' conversations with Michael of late, so I wanted to consider my experiences on the topic.

One thing that strikes me about software methodologies is that like many things which are written down, recorded and/or institutionalised, the reasons are often long forgotten. The early adopters are typically passionate, thoughtful, and (I believe) seeking to solve a very specific problem.

I've been (very) slowly collecting names and email addresses of enthusiastic testers in Melbourne, and have been hoping to organise some kind of meetup or regular drinks night. Is anyone from Melbourne reading? If so, drop a comment. If there is enough interest, I will post a venue/time.

Erik, you must come!

I suspect that my boss has helped focus this thought for me, but underlying assumptions behind checking something at the end might be -

- that you're going to get it right first time
- that nobody knows better than you do
- that it is going to be faster if you do it all at once (tightly coupled to the first one here)

Another possibility might be that you're afraid of negative feedback, which, in the context of working on a software team, is delaying the inevitable.

[textile]Jon Eaves was blogging about problems related to "development goals not aligning with business objectives":http://www.eaves.org/blog-archive/000146.html and it resounded with some thoughts I had been having on company values.[/textile]

In addition to goal alignment, I'm thinking at the moment that alignment of values is equally important, or at the very least it helps when the true values of the company are clearly stated. Goals tell us where we want to go. Values help us make decisions along the way.

I overheard the following sentence from a project manager, accompanied by shock and outrage:

"Two *resources* didn't turn up this morning!"

I believe the word they were looking for is "people".

...tools for thinking workers which don't work the way they think?

Which tools have people used that don't leave them with this feeling?

Which tools make you feel this way?

My list-

- Mercury products I've used
- Rational Robot (for performance testing)
- Lots of programming languages. Korean makes sense to me. C# doesn't. Or rather, it does, but I don't understand why you would choose to build a new language that way. Not very poka-yoke.

I don't know how to blog, so it may be ugly for a while...I'm also trying to learn how to put my thoughts in order. My brain is very spidery...There are little webs shooting off everywhere, so going in a straight line is quite difficult. I tend to internally argue with myself as I go along, so usually by the time I get to the end of what I'm writing, I disagree with the beginning. Let's see if I can't fix this as I go :)