Comments on: When the Best Tool Isn’t, and Why a Growing Team Doesn’t Care http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care Stories of a Self-published, Entrepreneurial Fiction Author (and Software Guy) Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:15:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.1 By: pliantalliance.org » Growing Teams http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-8079 pliantalliance.org » Growing Teams Thu, 31 Aug 2006 14:20:35 +0000 http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-8079 [...] J. Timothy King has a good post talking about trying out new tools and being open to experimentation. This is a great sentiment and really the only way to mature at all as software developers. Try new things and see if they help. If you are having trouble with your current tools and processes, then what is the harm in taking a few days (or weeks) to try something new? [...] […] J. Timothy King has a good post talking about trying out new tools and being open to experimentation. This is a great sentiment and really the only way to mature at all as software developers. Try new things and see if they help. If you are having trouble with your current tools and processes, then what is the harm in taking a few days (or weeks) to try something new? […]

]]> By: J. Timothy King http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7946 J. Timothy King Fri, 18 Aug 2006 01:44:01 +0000 http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7946 Yeah, John. I'd actually like to try more from Crystal, and I'd like to read more about other people's experiences. -TimK Yeah, John. I’d actually like to try more from Crystal, and I’d like to read more about other people’s experiences.

-TimK

]]> By: John Rusk http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7915 John Rusk Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:07:32 +0000 http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7915 Nice to see someone else writing about Crystal Clear :-) Nice to see someone else writing about Crystal Clear :-)

]]> By: Peter Arrenbrecht http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7830 Peter Arrenbrecht Thu, 10 Aug 2006 13:18:48 +0000 http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7830 Tim, this is exactly what I am using it for right now (on a project that is, unfortunately, not open-source yet, so I cannot show you). I've already gone on to make Excel sheets citable too because my project uses them as input. Nevertheless, I believe the approach should be extended to end-user applications, too. Web based stuff seems particularly doable. "Test first" would then be akin to building the app as a mockup first (as you should do for usability testing anyway) so you can cite individual screens in your docs explaining the flow of the documented use cases. -peo Tim, this is exactly what I am using it for right now (on a project that is, unfortunately, not open-source yet, so I cannot show you). I’ve already gone on to make Excel sheets citable too because my project uses them as input. Nevertheless, I believe the approach should be extended to end-user applications, too. Web based stuff seems particularly doable. “Test first” would then be akin to building the app as a mockup first (as you should do for usability testing anyway) so you can cite individual screens in your docs explaining the flow of the documented use cases.

-peo

]]> By: J. Timothy King http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7829 J. Timothy King Thu, 10 Aug 2006 13:10:58 +0000 http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7829 Hi, Peter. This looks interesting. I've bookmarked it to look over in more detail. The approach seems particularly suited to libraries or other projects that must publish an API. -TimK Hi, Peter. This looks interesting. I’ve bookmarked it to look over in more detail. The approach seems particularly suited to libraries or other projects that must publish an API.

-TimK

]]> By: Peter Arrenbrecht http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7826 Peter Arrenbrecht Thu, 10 Aug 2006 12:54:45 +0000 http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7826 Talking about growth, I just read your article about the benefits of test-first unit testing. Good to see such vocal support for this great practice! I also have been doing it for a while now to my great satisfaction. Recently, I have started taking it a step further: document and test first. And integrate the two. In essence it is something like literate programming, not of the production code, but instead of the top-level use-case tests. See http://arrenbrecht.ch/articles/SourceCiting.htm for an article exploring the idea and its benefits in greater detail, and http://arrenbrecht.ch/jcite/ for the tool I wrote to support this approach with Java. -peo Talking about growth, I just read your article about the benefits of test-first unit testing. Good to see such vocal support for this great practice! I also have been doing it for a while now to my great satisfaction. Recently, I have started taking it a step further: document and test first. And integrate the two. In essence it is something like literate programming, not of the production code, but instead of the top-level use-case tests. See

http://arrenbrecht.ch/articles/SourceCiting.htm

for an article exploring the idea and its benefits in greater detail, and

http://arrenbrecht.ch/jcite/

for the tool I wrote to support this approach with Java.

-peo

]]> By: J. Timothy King http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7733 J. Timothy King Thu, 03 Aug 2006 00:04:25 +0000 http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7733 Thanks for the kind words, Kathy. BTW, <em>Creating Passionate Users</em> is one of my must-read blogs. Please keep it going! -TimK Thanks for the kind words, Kathy. BTW, Creating Passionate Users is one of my must-read blogs. Please keep it going!

-TimK

]]> By: Kathy Sierra http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7719 Kathy Sierra Wed, 02 Aug 2006 17:30:46 +0000 http://blog.jtimothyking.com/2006/08/02/when-the-best-tool-isnt-and-why-a-growing-team-doesnt-care#comment-7719 This is awesome... and gives me a lot more to think about. I'll be talking about this part of the equation soon... and I agree with about 98.8475% of what you said (although I might have phrased a couple parts differently). Thanks for adding the crucial point (and with very insightful thoughts about it all) that I did leave off (and not intentionally; this was definitely a big cliff in my post). This is awesome… and gives me a lot more to think about. I’ll be talking about this part of the equation soon… and I agree with about 98.8475% of what you said (although I might have phrased a couple parts differently).

Thanks for adding the crucial point (and with very insightful thoughts about it all) that I did leave off (and not intentionally; this was definitely a big cliff in my post).

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