In the Small Not-for-Profit Web Presence posting, I identified a software portfolio for a small NFP. Basically, it was a list of cheap (or free) web resources that would provide a solid web presence with relatively low cost. More importantly, it would move them off a legacy web presence that …

Here's a great summary of Agile techniques. It's in ComputerWorld's Development section, in an article by Heather Havenstein: "Five Web 2.0 app dev lessons for enterprise IT ". I think the article is mis-titled, since it's basically "Agile for Big IT."

Some of the five techniques are motherhood and apple-pie …

Let's talk about a Small Not For Profit that has a number of web assets, but a web presence that isn't working well.

First, they have a Domain Name (pretend it's www.smallnfp.org). They have an associated organization which is hosting their web site. Let's call them the Associated …

Two recent conversations with the Non-Compromisers.

NC: "I can't use Yahoo! mail"

Me: "What?"

NC: "Yahoo! mail has a "Home" tab which isn't the inbox. It always lands there."

Me: "Yep. That's a javascript thing. The tab isn't bookmarkable."

NC: "The fact that I can't land directly on the "Inbox …

The requirements are a sequence diagram showing a complex back-and-forth with the vendor's web service. Each request and reply is detailed, but there's no overview or summary stated. It's implied, and all of the business folks can articulate it, but no one wrote any of it down.

This looks like …

I'm trying to make sense of the "Voice of the Customer" as the 6σ folks term it.

I get email once in a while on my books (Programming , Python and OO Design ). The volume of mail indicates that I have a few hundred readers. I'm honored to have readers who …

Here's how it shakes out from my point of view. You could say that my bias is showing. I think, however, I have solid evidence for my opinions.

C++. Fine if you like memory management. Don't get me wrong, some people love the nitty-gritty details. Some people would prefer to …

REST is cool because there's less protocol there -- little more than HTTP and some kind of representation for objects (XML, JSON or whatever.) It seems to me that REST with JSON is a very lightweight approach to implementing web services. Doing this in Python further trims down the technology stack …

I want to thank folks for their thoughtful comments.

I clarified a few design points.

Most importantly, I added four new appendices. For Python programmers, I provided examples of unittest, doctest and epydoc. For Java programmers, I provided examples of JUnit and javadoc.

I use the word denormalization heavily, to make a point to a certain class of developers. Other developers object to the term, since it doesn't have a precise meaning.

The point I often have to make this:

1. 3rd Normal Form is for Updates.
2. Data Warehousing is about Insert and Select …