I spend a lot of time in front of my computer every day. I discovered that over time, I have added so much attention-stealing stuff to my main work environment that I feel constantly interrupted. You get growl notifications, tweets, new email sounds, new email icons, RSS feed notifications and IM alerts. Time to reduce the attention-stealing clutter!

Lately, there has been some really interesting presentations and articles on agile methods and how they fit into the big picture of software development. One that was particularly interesting was Scott Ambler’s 2007 IT Project Success Rates Survey. Compared to the CHAOS report it moves a step forward, but I still have some doubts.

Two interesting quotes from Dietrich Kappe:
So no, we don’t hire architects. We hire developers. In a small team, there is no room for management deadwood.
I agree completely. My view is that the title “Software architect” is a misnomer for what most architects in the software industry do, or at least what they should be doing. [...]

Philip Su from Microsoft gives us a glimpse of the inner workings of one of the most complex software projects in the world. It is interesting to see that the same problems that sometimes plague small waterfall projects (lies, red tape) exist in an organization that have put a lot of effort into their development [...]