Exploration Through Example

Example-driven development, Agile testing, context-driven testing, Agile programming, Ruby, and other things of interest to Brian Marick

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Sat, 26 Jul 2003

Some random links

Martin Fowler on multiple canonical models:

One of the interesting consequences of a messaging based approach to integration is that there is no longer a need for a single conceptual model...

Martin is speaking of technical models, but I hear an echo of James Bach's diverse half measures (PDF): "use a diversity of methods, because no single heuristic always works." Any model is a heuristic, a bet that it's very often useful to think about a system in a particular way.

Greg Vaughn on a source of resistance to agile methods:

Agile development requires a large amount of humility. We have to trust that practices such as TDD (Test Driven Development) might lead to better software than what we could develop purely via our own creative processes. And if it doesn't then the problem might be us rather than the method. To someone whose self-image is largely centered on their own intelligence, this hits mighty close to home and evokes emotional defenses.

Laurent Bossavit on exaptation:

In the context of software, an exaptation consists of people finding a valuable use for the software by exploiting some implementation-level behaviour which is entirely accidental and was never anticipated as a requirement. Exaptations are interesting because I think they have to do with more than managing agreements - they're part of the process of discovering requirements as the product is being built.

Laurent, again, on nuances:

We have a knack for turning anything we do into an expressive medium. As a beginning driver, I was surprised to find that it was possible to blink a turn light contemptuously, or aggressively... Source code does allow one an infinite range of nuances in a restricted domain of expression: the description of problems we expect a computer to solve for us.

## Posted at 12:26 in category /misc [permalink] [top]