Month: July 2015

Rumor has it that a golfing maniac has escaped and is wreaking havoc on random golf courses.

Have you seen this person? If so then proceed with caution as he is armed with a sand wedge and dangerous.

The speed of feedback is very important in order for the product developers to do the right job.

Developers depend on feedback in order to make the right choices at the right time.

Feedback also allows developers to realize their mistakes and incorrect assumptions early on in order to recover before it is too late.

Proper and timely feedback allows one to operate the product development process effectively, especially in a very noisy and erratic environment.

By analyzing and reacting to feedback early, one adapts efficiently to unpredictability, and one is more flexible and dynamic to ever-changing business needs.

Unfortunately, current orthodox beliefs view feedback as the evil cause of undesirable rework loops, stubbornly insisting that rework is to be avoided by designing things right the first time (as if this is ever possible).

Of course we all know how foolish such an unfounded belief is, history has shown us too many failed projects which have fallen victim to this stubborn way of thinking.

Feedback gives one new and valuable information that can be used to freshen our viewpoints and make better economic choices.

Hurrah, I've qualified to play in the 3e NGF Maandbeker this Sunday at the Golfclub Cromstrijen. My lousy handicap has been slowly increasing so it's high time that I shoot another low score in order to bring my current handicap (4.6) down a couple of notches where it belongs.

Startlijst - 3e NGF Maandbeker op Cromstrijen
Aantal deelnemers - 55

Complete list.

Sunday, July 19
As it turns out, I had a stellar round with three birdies and no double-bogies and finished with a 75 which was 10th place. Not bad against all those youthful whippersnappers who can hit the ball a mile. I was by far the oldest one there, at least twice as old as the average player, and one of the players in my flight was nineteen years old believe it or not. Still a golfer who is young at heart.

Uitslag voor Heren - 3e NGF Maandbeker

Complete results.

There's an illusion going on out there, and it's best to avoid it with all your might. Just because you are in a hurry and think it's expedient to throw important requests over the wall into the development team as quickly as possible, does NOT mean that you are following the shortage route to getting it done. Done, done. Not done by development, not done by testing and not done as in "delivered" to the customer and curing his headache. That's really the moment of truth when the customer benefits from all that effort (money spent), when profits start rolling in. Repeat, does NOT. Too many people fail to understand this simple concept, because they are blinded by the glitter of money (so-called) and the individual bonus. In truth, injecting random tasks without proper preparation will in the end take much longer to actually get to the happy customer. Think about best practices. Follow the rules of thumb, and you will avoid being consumed later by the nightmare of endless after care and all night bug-fixing marathons (which will eat up any short term profits in no time). Here is what you should do with these request first. Analyse and localize, provide a structured and high-level description, prioritize, and then wait. Waiting is the hardest thing to do, especially in a commercial world where we the greedy ones are pressured to make a quick buck, or else. Or else the competitors will jump in front of you at your slightest hesitation. No, be wise and wait until the last possible moment, wait through that incubation period until the time is ripe. Decide when you are just still in control, just at furthest point within the window of opportunity, right before the moment that the decision will be forced upon you.

I couldn't resist the great book offer that the kind folks at O'Reilly emailed me, so I splurged and purchased the e-book called RESTful Rails Development by Silvia Puglisi.

Although I may fool myself into believing that I am some kind of expert and this is already all very familiar material, it's always good to refresh one's mind. Perhaps even discovering new information or coming across eye-opening code snippets. Rails, REST and Ruby, yeah sure I already know all that stuff. Or do I?

Coding years on end without keeping track of new stuff can be compared to driving a car your whole life and thinking that you are perfectly competent when actually you have unknowingly become a bigger danger on the road than you realize.

Be careful before you accidentally kill your fellow developer who is pair-programming next to you. Like I always say (sorry if I keep repeating myself too much), I am never too old to learn new stuff.

The book is still the early release raw and unedited, but I still found that there were way too many errors and typos. Sure the price was right and I should not have high expectations, but when you get into the flow of reading and are regularly disrupted by unclear and misspelled words, it's a bit of a hassle.

Especially when code fragments are wrong, I hate it when there are code typos. You never know if that is how it's really supposed to be or if it is an error, until you fire up irb or vi, type it all in yourself and (if there are no syntax errors) running it.

For example, seeing '{ :product_id => 2 }' all over the place instead of '{ :product_id => 2 }', now that's pretty aggravating.

Although the English isn't fluent, the contents and descriptions are done quite well and the story-line is very complete. I just hope that in the coming newer releases that the errors will be fixed and the sentences made to flow better.

Somehow managed to make it past the cut and qualified to play in the final round of the International Dutch Senior Open.

Not that I played that great, made many stupid mistakes but managed to hang in there and at the end pulling though with a streak of pars on the final four grueling holes.

My scores were just good enough to squeeze through, I shot a 43+42=85 and 41+42=83 (2 birdies, 5 double-bogies and 1 triple-bogie).

Complete list.

Saturday, July 11th :
Turns out that my excitement was short lived. Had a terrible third day. 45+43=88 with only 4 lousy pars, two double-bogies and a whole slew of bogies, very frustrating. Better luck next year.

Last week Friday afternoon it was an honor and a pleasure being able to play on De Pan which is one of the most prestigious golf courses in Holland.

Since I will be playing next week in the International Dutch Senior Open, I qualify for one free practice round. Normally the green fee is one hundred euros and you can only play if you are invited by one of the members.

Thirteenth hole par four at De Pan.

Hopefully next week I will play better than I have recently (pull my iron shots badly to the left or drive duck hooks off of the tee), but most importantly I will take the next few days to relax and prepare myself mentally.