Category Archives: Uncategorized

If you think you’re going to finish reading all those books you bought, you need more books.

As part of my preparation for a workshop I’m running next week, I’ve been studying the art and science of Mind Mapping, and the idea of Radiant Thinking which mind maps express. I have to admit, scribbling with felt tip … Continue reading →

When code is refactored, the tests associated with it help you to be sure that you haven’t broken anything. But code doesn’t test the tests! If you’ve ever renamed a test and accidentally typed tsetThat… at the beginning, you have … Continue reading →

So that was XP2005. What an amazing five days. Thanks to everyone who ran tutorials and workshops, presented papers or took time out from the northern ale to chat to me in the bar, and everyone here who let me … Continue reading →

An exercise we’ve been practicing at the conference. Sit down for ten minutes. Write. Don’t let your hand stop. If you can’t think of anything to write, write about that. Do this every day, if you possibly can. In my … Continue reading →

Lovely to finally meet Alan Francis and Dave Hoover for the first time. Things I learnt today: I have a hard trouble shifting preconceived notions. (Fortunately Alan and Dave are similar to my expectations.) Whilst working through an exercise in … Continue reading →

I received a letter yesterday morning telling me that one of the four poems I submitted to a competition had been selected to appear in the anthology. Fantastic! But… it wasn’t one of the three carefully crafted, heartfelt or witty … Continue reading →

I will be there. If you’re there too, and anything I’ve written makes you feel like talking to me – even if it’s to tell me that Vogons write better poetry than I do – say Hi. I will be … Continue reading →

Thanks to Dave for clarifying, again, his concept of an apprentice as someone who’s been working in Software Development for less than five years. I think that even within my first five years of software development, there were levels of … Continue reading →

Reading the discussions between Patrick Morrison and Dave Hoover on Dave’s pattern, Resist the Promotion (here and here), I hereby declare them to both be right and propose a new pattern, Step On Up. This is what I think I’m … Continue reading →