January 17th, 2006 by Mark Ramm
Over 24dot1 Sridhar Ratna talks about how he reimplemented a Java web application using TurboGears.
I started with TurboGears in my work at Amazon. As with Python’s elegance, I rewrote a 6000 lines Java application in just 600 lines of Python code. The whole Turbogears application took me 4 working days, as apposed to 3 months of Java situps.
The numbers in the LOC comparison are impressive, as is the time comparison.
But we probably need to take all of this with a couple grains of salt. For thing it is a lot easier to reimplement something than it is to write it in the first place.
Second, Sridhar seems like he has more experience with Python than Java, so he might have been able to cut out some of that Java code.
But, even after you take these things into account, I think this shows what a full-stack, modern, dynamic language based, application framework can do to improve your productivity, and help you do more with less lines of code.
January 15th, 2006 by Mark Ramm
I’m officially opening up the registration for the Online TurboGears class.
You just go to http://compoundthinking.com/classes. You will need this registration key:
open-523
The class will officially start on Saturday the 28th. This will be my first time for doing a totally online class, so I may have to adjust some of the details as we go.
UPDATE: Due to the overwhelming response this class has is no longer open for registration. But if there is enough interest, especially if people are willing to help out by hanging out in the forums and answering questions, I’ll definitely be offering more instances of this class soon.
January 12th, 2006 by Mark Ramm
Mary and Tom Poppendiek have done it again. They have posted the first three draft chapters of their new book Lean Software Development: A Field Guide.
The thing I most appreciate about Tom and Mary’s work is their deep understanding of both Lean Manufacturing and Agile Software practices.
There’s definitely a lot the software development world can learn from lean manufacturing, but I’m convinced that there is even more that we can learn from the way Toyota and Honda do product development.
Product development and manufacturing are different worlds
A simplistic focus on eliminating wasted effort as in manufacturing is likely to backfire when applied to software development. Luckily this book gives us a peek into the keys to great product development processes by looking into amplified learning, and set based development.
Hopefully we’ll see more on concurrent development, integration events, and knowledge capture-transfer (through trade-off curves) and other important pieces of the Toyota/Honda product development process as they post more chapters.
If you are interested in Lean and IT Management, this book like it’s predecessor, is definitely worth your time.
January 6th, 2006 by Mark Ramm
Or you might walk in
And find out I’m gone
I got to have
A little respect
Respect is the one of the key differences between successful Agile/Six Sigma/Lean initiatives and failures. Management can push agile methodologies, but if they don’t engage employees at the level of respected practitioners who will actually have to do the implementation work, the project will fail. This is because Agile/Lean and to a lesser extent Six Sigma initiatives require creativity, initiative, and dedication from everybody on the team.
Someone at work cares about me as a person.
Of the thousand or so statements Gallop asked people to rate as a description of their work life, this is one is in the top six in terms of correlation to business unit performance, reduced turnover, and job satisfaction. In other words, making this statement true for all your employees will increase your likelihood of success.
This respect is also the difference between the Toyota Production System as practiced by Toyota and Lean Manufacturing as practiced by the some large American companies. Toyota is focused on getting individual employees engaged in improving every process from the ground up. This shows they respect the line worker as one of the key sources of innovation in their company, something which I doubt you could say about GM, or Ford.
Top down enforcement of one-piece-flow, and value stream mapping, will only prove that Lean works better at Toyota. You don’t get the benefits of these things if every single human being on the plant floor is not an active part of the improvement process. And, my contention is that they will never participate if they don’t feel cared for as an individual.
So, what works for Toyota on the production line — Empowering and respecting their employees — also works for Agile Software teams. And, I’ll be willing to bet that even if you don’t go Agile or Lean, just improving the “respect for employees” metric will have an impact on your bottom line.
January 5th, 2006 by Mark Ramm
In just a few months, the TurboGears Users Google group has passed a number of important milestones, and the 1000 user milestone is a big one. In fact there are just 5 groups in the Computers-Internet category that have both 1000+ users, and high traffic. So, TurboGears certainly seems to be reaching people with a compelling story about how to create web applications more efficiently.
And I’m pretty sure we are just beginning to see the extent of that story, with 0.9 coming soon, and 1.0 hot on it’s tail.