.Hibri

BBC Worldwide (my employer) is sponsoring a conference on software craftmanship on the 26th of February 2009. This is about the skills you need to build better software. This is about the refactoring skills, spotting code smells and habits that make you a better developer.

The programme and registration details are at Software Craftmanship 2009 

This conference is not about how to do Agile, or how to get started with TDD or how to get started with a certain technology. The conference is programming language agnostic and the skills can be applied to any programming language.

Typing this from a laptop running Windows 7 Beta. This is an older laptop, which is now idle because it has been replaced by a new Dell Studio laptop. Toshiba Satellite M30, 1.5GB RAM, GeForce Go 5200 with 64MB video ram. The only problem was finding the driver for the GeForce Go 5200. I found the Vista 32 bit drivers for this from here. I’ve got full Aero running, it it’s quite snappy. All the other drivers are the normal Vista 32 bit drivers.

Win7 hasn’t picked up the power management utilities from Toshiba (?), trying to see if the utilities from my other Toshiba laptop will work on this. Looks very good so far. Think I’ll wait for Windows 7 to upgrade my main laptop to a 64 bit OS. I’m still not very happy with the driver support from nVidia, and ATI does not seem to be much different either.

Stumbled across this blog entry by William Pietri. Made a list of some pair programming smells I have observed in the wild

1. Quiet Partner  - only one does all the talking, the other listens quietly, often looks bored and un-interested.

2. God Syndrome – the less experienced of the pair is afraid to ask questions. Not wanting to admit lack of knowledge. The superior of the pair zooms along assuming the other is following along.

3. Constant Arguing – over minor design decisions, egotistic reasons. not coming to conclusions.

4.  “My work is so boring, I don’t you to want to see it, let me slave away in the salt mines”

5. Going too fast – Either of the pair going too fast.” I know what I’m doing, just watch me”, and not bothering to explain.

6. Lack of focus - “Hey look at this other thing I’m doing”.

7. Quiet pair – ignoring partner, partner not interested. “I finished everything when you were having a cuppa”.

Ping Pong pairing

SO questions tagged with pair programming