Monday, June 28, 2010

Gad...Yet More Quotes from Twitter

Been too long since I posted anything.  But, fortunately, I have been very busy with work and still digging out from under a move to a much smaller place.  I said it a few months ago, but I hope to turn posting to this blog into a more regular habit.
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@funnyoneliners - When asked "What would you bring with you to a deserted island", how come no one ever replies, "A boat."?

Alan Cooper - Art always contains craft, but not vice versa.

Bob Martin - Any meaningful certification must be hard to acquire with a significant chance of failure. I wonder what the CSD failure rate will be...

Bob Martin - Once any word, like "agile" or "Object" or "Structured" becomes synonymous with "Good" it has lost all meaning.

Bob Martin - Second law of meetings: Meetings are for decisions. If you don't know what's to be decided, don't go. If no decision is proposed, leave.

Brad Burt - In the 'Art of the Effect' in magic, less is almost always MORE. It has to do with purity and thus the ease of a watchers acquisition of what has happened. Amazement is knowledge of a kind.

Brian Marick - The original sin of Agile is that small nimble companies don't pay consultants enough, so all the attention is to the lumbering dinosaurs. James Shore - Such truth in @marick's tweet. Explains "Agile" plan tools, watering down of Agile, desire to "scale" mediocrity. Not only reason, natch. [Brian noted “original sin” term not right one. Other noted consultant focus wasn’t real point, it was “dinosaur” focus.]

Brian Marick (at goosgaggle ) - design happens in writing the test - implementation is just stenography.

David Hussman - Many companies need to slow down to get more done.

Dawn Cannon - The purpose of planning is not to prevent uncertainty, but rather to plan how to deal with uncertainty.

Esther Derby - managers are designers of the experience of work.

Esther Derby - Resistance = "Other people are not doing things I want them to do w/ the speed or enthusiasm that I desire."

FunnyOneLiners - It's not easy taking my problems one at a time when they refuse to get in line.

Hannu Kokko - Partial conditions of satisfaction for a demo: understandable, valuable for customer, wow-factor, shows progress

Hillel Glazer (heard at SE{G NA) - Proposal to add a new value to manifesto: "we value improvement over compliance"

Ian E. Savage - Certifications are only as good as the certifying agency. Got it. Let’s move on, shall we.

James Bach - A lot of my choices are about arranging life so instead of having to control my anger, I don't have anger that needs controlling.

James Bach (at #accu2010 via Tom Gilb) - 'it is Testers Job to not be fooled by What is fooling everyone else'. 'testing is about discovering the significance of the requirements'. ‘The spec is a rumor! Wouldn't you like to know what the code ACTUALLY does before you ship?’

James Bach (at StarEast via Matt Heusser) - "bad rigor is following instructions without understanding them", or "pathetic compliance"

Jared Richardson – Overheard: Jenga development. You're not sure which piece will bring it all down, so you resist any changes no matter what.

Jason Gorman (via Hannu Kokko & Kent Beck) - Knowledge of languages and APIs no more makes you a developer than knowledge of anatomy makes you a doctor.

Jerry Weinberg - When managers don't understand the work, they tend to reward the appearance of work. (long hours, piles of paper, ...)

Joseph Angel Alcala - Apologizing always doesn't mean you wrong and others right...means you respect relationship more than your ego.

Ken Schwaber (in a recent podcast, reported by Tobias Meyer) - Scrum is less a silver bullet and more an enema.

Kent Beck (via Jon Udell) - There's no difference I can see but there's obviously a difference the computer can see. I hate that.

Marcus Ahnve (via Lasse Koskela) - Feedback without conversation is criticism.

Mark Levison (re: Agile retrospectives) - I ask "what needs improvement" and focus is on discovering issues. Next I ask "What does team have energy to improve". Then they create action plan.

Michael Bolton - The *number* of test cases that are passing or failing has no more meaning than the *number* of ideas you had in the shower.

Michael Feathers (via Jurgen Appelo) - If you don't give your software a shape, it's going to get a shape anyway. The reason most of our code sucks is that we don't take ourselves seriously as users of our code. Constraints drive design. TDD is an example of a constraint (testable code), and design thrives in constraints.

Morrell (via Jesse Fewell at InfoTech2010) - your team doesn't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Naresh Jain - Little things make big things possible. Close attention to fine details brings out excellence in your craft.

Payson Hall - Pondering process improvement/decay cycle oscillation: +Pain > +motivation > +rigor > -pain > -motivation > -rigor > +pain... (repeat)

Peter Scholtes (via Glyn Lumley) - Explaining why change is important will not make the change happen.

Phillip G Armour - and testing is also about finding out how to find out something you don't know you don't know.

Stephen King (via Peter Murphy) - If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

Stephen Mann (via Anna Nachesa) - Love the old management saying ... meetings - where minutes are saved and hours are lost.

Tom Kealey - Instead of asking the question "how agile are we?" try "how are we agile?" The difference is profound.

Woody Williams - The absence of failure is not an indication of success.