We have 3547 guests and 4 members online

Video Spotlight

Home > Blogs > Featured Blogs > Waddling in the Mud

Waddling in the Mud

davidbairdby David Baird

The software pattern Big Ball of Mud was first presented at PLoP '97 to describe the worse kind of system architecture imaginable, while at the same time being the most popular and successful. The patterns which make up the Big Ball of Mud were presented at my own development organization as we were starting an intensive software process improvement task force. Inspired to avoid the ball of mud, while recognizing its attractiveness, we achieved several improvement goals. This blog is a from-the-trenches report of searching for the best fit of software processes for our teams, and perhaps someone will learn from it as they wallow in their own shantytown of a software project.

Everyone Getting Dirty
Written by David Baird   
Sunday, 22 October 2006 22:32
What do you do when the big ball of mud you are dealing with is not the project you are working on, but rather the software process tools that have been customized over the years to coordinate the changes of two thousand engineers working on the same code base? When you are working as a small 20 engineer team in the swamp of a large scale project, how do you deal with the bureaucratic needs of the integration and release team while holding onto your own agile development practices? These are among our challenges, and what we are trying to do to overcome them.
Read more
Add comment (0)
Hits: 5676
Last Updated on Monday, 06 November 2006 05:18
 

Taking a Mud Bath
Written by David Baird   
Saturday, 21 October 2006 00:08

I was talking about exploring improvements to our review process, but that isn't the only approach we were taking to better code quality. We were also talking about automated tools like lint, and looking at the unit and system methodology. I'll get to the lint and test issue in a later blog. I was reading what various books and web sites said about effective defect discovery in the development phase, and code review always turned up near the top of the list. The problem was, many programmers are intimidated by allowing others to criticize their work, so to give them the incentive to do it, and often?

Read more
Add comment (0)
Hits: 6707
Last Updated on Sunday, 22 October 2006 13:00
 

Mud is Just Dirt and Water
Written by David Baird   
Friday, 13 October 2006 06:15

One of our team lead managers gave a talk about the Big Ball of Mud. With a title like that, how could I miss it? It was very tongue and cheek, but had a really good message about what we think of software architecture, the projects we work on, and the processes we follow and avoid. It was one of those kick in the pants presentations which encouraged enough engineers to think about how to improve our own software process, even after we thought we had a pretty good one going.

Read more
Add comment (0)
Hits: 6831
Last Updated on Tuesday, 17 October 2006 06:25
 


Agile Marketplace - Announcements and Special Offers

White Paper: Code Review IS an Agile Process!
Peer code review is one of the most effective ways to improve Software Quality – but is it Agile? Done correctly, it absolutely is. This white paper tells you how.
Download Today!

Virtual Conference: Collabnet Agile ALM
Stay current by attending CollabNet’s virtual conference, Agile ALM for Distributed Development, Thursday, April 15, from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm PDT. Free registration.
Register Today!

Webcast:  Moving Build and Code Quality Upstream
This interactive panel discussion moderated by Bob Aiello, Editor-in-Chief fo the CM Journal brings industry experts Anders Wallgren, CTO of Electric Cloud and Gwyn Fisher, CTO of Klocwork together for a candid discussion of the cost savings, productivity and quality benefits that can be achieved by stabilizing builds and code quality as early in the development cycle as possible.
Register Now!

Collabnet -TeamForge 5.3
CollabNet TeamForge 5.3 includes Dynamic Planning—providing flexibility to model release scope and timeline in a single view. Now, you can easily manipulate/adjust release data.
Download Your Free Trial

Requirements-based testing (RBT) can help to ensure comprehensive test coverage, reducing the risk of failure and improving software quality. This white paper details how application lifecycle management can be used to more effectively implement RBT processes, offering greater collaboration, traceability and control.can help you increase efficiency, reduce project risk, and improve overall software quality. Learn how MKS Integrity for application lifecycle management enables RBT, delivering full lifecycle traceability to help ensure that project requirements have complete test planning and execution coverage.
Download the Requirements-Based Testing whitepaper

PureCM –SCM for Agile Teams
PureCM helps you to manage development in short iterations: keeping track of changes, supporting automated builds and preserving frequent snapshots of your projects.
Get the free trial now