I spent three days in Vancouver last week at the OOPSLA 2004 conference. It was great to be back at this wonderful conference after a two year hiatus (2002 I was travelling, 2003 it was the week before Borland Conference 2003).
They always have a good bookstore at OOPSLA filled with the latest methodology, process, and programming books. Two books that I bought at the show include: "Waltzing with Bears" by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister (ISBN 0-932633-60-9). This book covers the identification and management of risk in software projects. Requirements and risk are areas we all have to spend more time focusing on in order to achieve successful project conclusions. DeMarco and Lister are also the authors of "Peopleware : Productive Projects and Teams" (ISBN 0-932633-43-9), a must read book for all developers and managers.
The other book I purchased is "Organization Patterns of Agile Software Development" by Jim Coplien and Neil Harrison (ISBN 0-13-146740-9). I’ve been really looking forward to the publication of this book for more than 10 years. In 1993, I connected Jim Coplien and our Quattro Pro for Windows R&D team for some research Jim was doing at AT&T Bell Labs. In the book, "Part IV, Case Studies", Chapter 8, "Borland Quattro Pro for Windows" is the first case study covered. In the introduction to the case study, Jim and Neil include the following email I wrote to Jim years ago (the square brackets are text I’ve added to the quoted email).
- "Jim - Thanks again for speaking at BIC International (Borland Conference) ‘93. I’m also glad you could stop by Borland and experience what we call Borland Software Craftsmanship. We are a young company, started by a Frenchman [Philippe Kahn], with young bright and excited developers. In my 8 [now 19.5 years] years at Borland I have been in the center of it all and can’t imaginge another place to be. — David Intersimone, Director of Developer Relations. Borland."
You can find the Organizational Patterns Wiki at http://www.easycomp.org/cgi-bin/OrgPatterns?OrganizationalPatterns.
In future blog postings I will write more about my experiences (the wonderful, the good, the bad, and the awful) at OOPSLA 2004. Next year’s OOPSLA will be held in San Diego, October 16-20, 2005.
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