Those who know me will back me up on this; I evaluate things fairly. You will never hear me say $FOO is clearly superior than anything else, and there’s no reason for anyone to use anything else. That includes Linux and Linux distros. I calls them as I sees them, and I do not feel that Linux is always better in every situation for every user, nor is one distribution/brand of Linux clearly the best for all situations. And I’ve been using Linux since Red Hat 4.2 in 1997 (I still have the disks).
I recently installed Ubuntu Karmic (9.10), waiting a few months after release as I usually do so the major bugs are already fixed, and ran into many more problems than I expected. I find this unfortunate, because one of the main reasons I switched from Fedora to Ubuntu is no longer valid. Some of this post is about this release, and some is about the state of Linux in general.
Read on…
I am no longer at Litle & Co. My separation agreement prevents me from discussing the details, but it’s fair to say I’m not very happy about it.
I have been a hands-on Manager, a Team Lead, and a Principal Software Engineer. I’m looking for a full-time position in the Greater Boston area (but not downtown Boston) developing Java, preferably in an Agile environment. I have extensive experience in software design and development, as well as hands-on management. My strengths are my diversity and depth of experience, perseverance, ability to learn new technologies quickly, and organizational skills. My specialty is cross-platform development and tools.
You can read more about my skills and projects, and download my resume, on my portfolio page.
Some think Agile is all seat-of-your-pants. That’s not true at all. Agile requires knowing where you are right now and what you need to do in the near future; it just doesn’t put a lot of faith in guesses where you’ll be 8 months from now.
The various forms of Agile all contain a set of practices to follow and others to stay away from, each with their strengths and weaknesses. Successful implementation of Agile requires selecting and implementing practices that complement and support each other, covering all required needs without duplication (which is where a good deal of the efficiency comes in). It’s bad enough if you pick a set of practices that don’t support each other, but it’s much worse to chose the right practices but not implement them right. That’s because it can create a false sense of security. Read on…