More OSCON Keynotes

R0ml Lefkowitz poked fun at the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF), and Rational Unified Process, the this, the that. Fun phrases and namespaces.

eXtreme programming's Kent Beck gives us six phases, ending in death.

Ethos:

• running code speaks
• peer review
• release early release often
• given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow
• community matters
• fail fast
• always make new mistakes

Quintillian: inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, pronuntiatio (Lefkowitz is a fabulous rhetoritician). I call it the Be Do Have projects completion cycle (Urner, GST).

Exceptional Software Methodology:

How gracefully software handles exceptions is what makes it exceptional.

Keep Quintillian's model, but start the circle in a new place:

• Commit / Update (memoria)
• Run / Use (Pronuntiatio)
• Bug Reporting (Inventio)
• Triage (Dispositio)
• Integration (Elocutio)

Note we start by "releasing the crap" (whatever you've got, version it, then run / use, collect bugs etc.).

No requirements: because there is no "development" only "maintenance."

Don't lock it up front with "requirements", just let users complain when it doesn't do what they want it to do.

The talk was somewhat tongue in cheek, lots of laughter. Go R0ml.

[ Later: here's Duncan's review ]

damian's impression of r0ml
(click to read talk balloon?)

Damian Conway did not disappoint. His themes interwove, lots of build up, then a really crazy riff on Dirac / Feynman and positronic variables (type pv in his Perl implementation, swimming upstream against the flow of control (going "back" in time)) -- not forgetting Rod Logic (easy links to Gattegno). His send ups of R0ml, Mark, Larry Wall, were both hysterical and highly appreciative. Wittgenstein and nanotubes (the rods) were also prominent.

I'm enjoying the new O'Reilly master of ceremonies this year Allison Randal, an accomplished geek. Nathan Torkington's shoes are big ones to fill (figuratively speaking). Edd Dumbill is co-chair.