This is a problem folks new to Python have, and sometimes can't articulate that they have it.

They don't know which package is the "right" one to use. Tox vs. Nox. Click vs. Argparse vs. getopts? What's the "best" choice?

• Response 1. The whole Python ecosystem is chaos and the …

web2py wins an award -- cool. I really like Django. But...

Computerworld, July 26, 2010 cover story was "Sustaining Innovation". The magazine was chock-full of thoughts on innovation.

Much of it was good, but some of it is just appeasement to management types who are focused on cost and schedule.

"Establish processes and ownership. Organizations should have a process for taking …

Eight Things Business Hates About IT. Plus eight things IT hates about business.

I suppose.

While there are 8 things identified, they seem to boil down to 2 things to fix: Replace bureaucratic with Agile; replace Keep The Lights On Management with any other way of budgeting.

While Agility is …

Here's the article, "The New Focus Group: The Collective ".

The point is that simplistic Return on Investment misses the point. The point is that marketing models aren't simple linear relationships between promotional dollars and sales.

I was all excited about the value of innovation and the source of innovation .

The …

The SD Times article (Python 3.0 won't be compatible... ) was very helpful -- crisp, to the point, management-friendly coverage. [For some additional thoughts, see the Python 3.0 and Language Evolution question on Stackoverflow.]

This applied to what we're building at work. Here's the best part. When I started on …

Here's a great quote from a reader regarding Big Plan for Change : "[the advice] doesn't account for project tracking requirements of the organization. Budgeting. Metrics. Hiring. Documenting. Transitioning to new staff."

Good point. Let's look at these in a little bit of depth. We'll cover the three management practices first …

See Fast, but Slowly . ComputerWorld, Frankly Speaking, August 25, 2008, by Frank Hayes.

This is a very cool restatement of some essential Agile principles.

Sure, we can train and plan -- and we should. But there are too many unknowns to train and plan for everything. A slow ramp-up lets us …

An old professor of mine writes "There are lots of pathological propensities at work ..., "Gee, we've got a way to use the computer to ..." In short, automation for the sake of automation."

See jbox.dk Quotations on Simplicity . The fundamental principle is that simplicity is really important. But how do …

Some of Cringley's The Truth About IT Consultants is good stuff. His Type "A" and Type "C" are both stories of consultants who are brought in because they have specific skills. In the "A" case, it's a technical skill, and in the "C" case it's project management.

In both cases …