Author Archive
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Of Starships, Super-science, and SlickEdit
Not once in my childhood did I dream about growing up to be a software development manager. No, I dreamt of being a starship captain or maybe a super-scientist, like Dr. Benton Quest (Johnny Quest’s father). Unfortunately, there are no starships to captain and the super-science field requires more capital than I can scrape together. [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by Scott Westfall
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
Diminishing the Role of Folklore in Software Development
There’s a great old commercial for Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pops that reminds me a lot of what happens on most software projects. The commercial features a crudely drawn cartoon of a boy trying to figure out a vitally important question. Boy: Mr. Turtle, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in Dev Management,Productivity,Programming by Scott Westfall
Monday, August 10th, 2009
My Economic Stimulus Plan: Cash for Clunky Editors
As part of the economic stimulus package, the government has instituted a Cash for Clunkers program that pays people to trade in older, less fuel-efficient cars for new, more fuel-efficient ones. $1 billion was made available for this program, and it was quickly used up. So, Congress is debating allocating even more money. While the [...]
