|
 2004 Industry Watch
By Dave Rubinstein
Crossing the Channels
(Issue 116, December 15, 2004)
Businesses and consumers seem to have reached a comfort level with using the World Wide Web to transact business. Companies can maximize trade partner opportunities and work more closely than ever with suppliers and delivery systems, while consumers have come to enjoy the ability to shop at home, at all hours, without hassle, and have gained the confidence that their credit card numbers are secure. click for full story
I.M. Developer, Esq.
(Issue 115, December 1, 2004)
Near the beginning—of open-source software, that is—licenses for using code were written in a clean, concise way so that developers wishing to use the available offerings could understand them. That certainly made sense, as developers first and foremost are the ones making the determination to use the code in the first place. click for full story
Technology's Impact on Ratings
(Issue 113, November 1, 2004)
Cooperate on standards, compete on implementation. It’s a mantra we’ve heard time and again in the software development industry. But does adoption of and adherence to standards make a broad statement about a vendor’s overall health? ACORD, a standards organization for the insurance industry, thinks so.
click for full story
Analyze This
(Issue 112, October 15, 2004)
The role of a free press is to provide impartial, objective news and information to the readers of a community, giving them tools to make important decisions that affect their daily lives. Most newspapers remain objective even though they accept advertising from big companies and special interests, because the papers make clear (both to readers and advertisers) there is no quid pro quo, no editorial favors for purchasing ad space. Macy’s, for example, is a huge national advertiser in newspapers, but when the company’s revenues fail to meet projections, or stores are closed or employees laid off, it all is dutifully reported. click for full story
With Process for All
(Issue 111, October 1, 2004)
There are business processes, and then there are business rules. A business process could define the way an organization works; for example, this developer reports to that manager, who signs off on all projects before they go to QA, which then must document all findings and send reports to four different department heads, who must sign off before the project advances into production.
click for full story
A Lord of Discipline
(Issue 110, September 15, 2004)
As an engineering discipline, it would be kind to say that software development merely is young. It often is unstructured, with poor—if any—preproject estimates of time, functionality, cost and manpower being done; little—if any—modeling of the project to gain a visual understanding of what is being built; and no—that’s no—licensing of programmers to show they have achieved a level of expertise. Far too often, the mentality is more akin to playing jazz than engineering: “Let’s just wing it.”
click for full story
End-of-Summertime Blues
(Issue 109, September 1, 2004)
They say you’re supposed to use a sabbatical from work as a time for self-improvement. Some people take classes, or learn a new language, or discover how to catch fish with a spear. I can say that in the spirit of the time I was given to spend away from this office, I was able to better myself in at least one way. Over the past weeks, I got a better tan. click for full story
The Once and Future Kings
(Issue 108, August 15, 2004)
The phrase “The Once and Future King” has been used in many contexts, but is arguably best known as a title of a collection of books about the mythical King Arthur. Written by T.H. White in the 1950s, those books have nothing to do whatsoever with software development.
click for full story
Russian School Passes Test
(Issue 107, August 1, 2004)
News item: The first 15 students have graduated from the American Software Quality Assurance School in Moscow. click for full story
See Nitix Run
(Issue 106, July 15, 2004)
One of our chief responsibilities as the newspaper of record for the software development industry is to cut through the marketing spiel of tools and platform vendors to give you, our readers, as objective a look as possible at what’s happening in the industry. click for full story
One Blueprint for Architectures
(Issue 105, July 1, 2004)
As the presidential legacies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton are debated at memorials, in memoirs and from memories, one federal achievement is obscured by Iran-Contra, “Read my lips,” and “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.” However, it might prove to have the longest life of them all. click for full story
A Cult of Anonymity
(Issue 104, June 15, 2004)
There has been somewhat of a tempest in a teapot recently on the Linux-focused news site, slashdot.org. One writer claims he has caught several JBoss employees—even CEO Marc Fleury—in the act of posting anonymous messages on TheServerSide.com and other developer community Web sites. click for full story
Quid Pro Quovadx
(Issue 103, June 1, 2004)
The list of companies tarred by the brush of financial wrongdoing grows ever longer. Enron...Adelphia Communications…Tyco International...Computer Associates...Quovadx… click for full story
That Certain Quality
(Issue 102, May 15, 2004)
Software quality means different things to different people. To some, it means the number of bugs in an application. To others, it refers to response times, or even availability. For others still, it’s about plugging security vulnerabilities. click for full story
Licensed to Bill
(Issue 101, May 1, 2004)
Better late than never” isn’t always true. In some cases, because you’re late, the result could be “never again.” click for full story
Fractured Standards
(Issue 100, April 15, 2004)
I remember, in the days long before high definition and digital surround sound, watching Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons with segments called “Fractured Fairy Tales,” which took fable characters such as Rapunzel or Hansel and Gretel and put them in comic situations, with the classic narration of legendary character actor Edward Everett Horton tying it all together. click for full story
Change for Change’s Sake
(Issue 099, April 1, 2004)
Sometimes, change for the sake of change—or in this case, for the sake of change/configuration management—actually can result in advancement. click for full story
Community VS. Company
(Issue 098, March 15, 2004)
Marc Fleury, the CEO of the newly incorporated JBoss Inc., is fed up click for full story
Two Linuxes, and That’s Okay
(Issue 097, March 1, 2004)
The UnitedLinux effort—which brought together for a brief time four of the open-source operating-system vendors to work for a common distribution and global support for users—apparently has been snuffed out by fractiousness among its members, most notably SUSE, now under Novell’s ownership, and SCO. click for full story
Free, As In For Profit
(Issue 096, February 15, 2004)
There was no talk of “cathedrals” and “bazaars.” There was no mention of fragmentation. The usual proselytizing was missing. But what there was discussion about, on the floor and in the meeting rooms of the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center here in mid-January, was money. Specifically, how to make it.
click for full story
Thoroughly Modern Mining
(Issue 095, February 1, 2004)
Object Management Group Inc. has undertaken an ambitious project, called Architecture-Driven Modernization, as a way to make current an organization’s legacy systems—“any production-enabled system regardless of language or platform.” As I discussed in the last column (“Two Sides to Every Transformation,” Jan. 15), Phil Murphy of Giga Information Group claims the idea is too broad and, because the initial effort will not delve down to the code level, “fatally flawed.” click for full story
Two Sides to Every Transformation
(Issue 094, January 15, 2004)
Phil Murphy of Giga Information Group was reading the Oct. 15 issue of SD Times when he came across my story about Object Management Group’s effort to create a specification for transforming legacy applications and systems to bring them up to date. click for full story
Welcome the Business Designer
(Issue 093, January 1, 2004)
One of last year’s hottest acronyms was BPM—business process management. In theory, BPM is a way to make sure that disparate applications are created that can work together to serve the needs of the business. click for full story
|
|
Advertisement
|