Columns: Dev How-To and Advice


Book Excerpt: Tips and techniques for managing scope creep

Development managers must react quickly to any sign of scope creep. Here is some advice for working with your customers and for negotiating your way through any potential problems that might slow or halt development.

Oracle opens up (just a bit)

JDeveloper successfully integrates features for all development phases of J2EE and several related technologies into one environment. While it is an ideal solution for building apps built on top of Oracle’s database and application server, JDeveloper’s lack of broad support for other environments may inhibit its adoption.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: A review of “Hackers and Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age”

Just as painters often take day jobs to support their art, so too must hackers take day jobs with companies writing less-than-beautiful software to make enough money to write the software they really want to write. A collection of 16 essays on computers and the people who program them.

Unifying Data, Documents and Processes

Disparate systems make business process automation inefficient. Semantic integration of structured, unstructured and process data simplifies implementation of a robust SOA model.

The 10 ways of KPI

There’s a lot of talk these days about Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). They are the backbone of scorecards and dashboards, which organizations use to present performance information to executives and staff. Unfortunately, BI developers seem to focus more on creating visual metaphors than on understanding what constitutes a good KPI that delivers long-term value to the firm.

Perspective on XML: Steady steps spell success with Google

Developer lessons from Googlemania: Keep interfaces simple, don’t write off legacy and make the technology transparent.Google is a technology even our grandmothers can use. Like an oracle, you express what you seek in simple terms, never minding the underlying magic; unlike an oracle, however, you don’t have to bring an offering before you’re seen, and the answers are generally informative and not couched in puzzles.

Reporter’s Notebook: Failed project talking or Tales of the FBI

A phone conversation with industry luminary Ken Orr helps to highlight some findings on Trilogy, an important FBI software project that is too long in coming.

Books in Brief: Lessons learned from experience

New Mochal book does not set out to teach you about some complicated project management scheme. It simply tries to teach basic concepts that apply no matter what complicated project management scheme you’re trying to use.

Eating your own dog food

IT is being asked to streamline corporate governance, but the IT house itself is not necessarily in good order. Ironically, while most companies rely on IT to implement technology solutions for running the enterprise, IT is typically the last group to adopt technology to manage its own domain.

A review of XWall 3.1 and Mapforce 2004

Mike Gunderloy reviews XWall 3.1 and Mapforce 2004.

Product Review: Flex your UI

Flex delivers a very rich client dev tool on the first try. This tool and cross-platform RIA will only get better.

Product Briefs

A look at software tools and technologies on the market.

Editor’s letter: What’s next?

In the July issue, we take a look at some technologies that are grabbing the interest of IT executives worldwide -- wireless, Web services management tools and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology -- and have the potential to provide a significant boost to the technology sector.

Can EJB be fixed?

The lack of widespread use and the long learning curve for EJBs has prompted Sun and its partners in the JCP to work on simplifying the EJB model in its next iteration (Version 3.0) in an effort to make the technology more mainstream.

Guest Column: Six Sigma's not for everyone

IT units should look hard at the costs of extending the manufacturing process to software development operations.

Product Review: XML in the vortex: A review of VorteXML Designer V3

VorteXML Designer V3 is a capable tool with solid functionality, but it is missing the polish and some features that would make it truly excellent.

Take your pick: Business processes or Bangalore

As technical jobs move offshore, developers should seek out those projects most closely bound to business processes.

Book Review: A Practical Guide to Enterprise Architecture

Most enterprise-level project failures are not the result of choosing the wrong language, not having the right development tools or even having lousy programmers on the development team. The problem is that the architecture is not adequate to support the applications.

A review of SpectrumSCM 2.0 and StateCoder

Mike Gunderloy reviews SpectrumSCM 2.0 and StateCoder

Product Briefs

A look at software tools and technologies on the market.