What fascinates me the most in the Lean software development approach is the quality of the people that support it. The Poppendieck are not an exception to this rule. Their book achieves the seemingly contradictory goals of being very insightful but still easy and captivating to read. It might be however easier to have the right flow when you are a Lean adept ;o)

I have just finished reading the great book “Leading Lean Software Development” by Mary and Tom Poppendieck and I wanted to share with you two quotes excerpted from it.

Devart announced the release of dbForge Schema Compare and Data Compare for MySQL, v2.00. Updated product versions not only automate schema and data synchronization, but also offer efficient tools to take full control during these processes.

Registration is now open for the second edition of the XP Day in Geneva. Building on the success of the first edition, the organizers have scheduled a program that should satisfy both people that want to discover what Agile is and practitioners that want to improve their agile practices. For the second year, the conference will host the Agile magicians duo composed of Portia Tung and Pascal Van Cauvenberghe that will present the “Coaching with the Wizard of Oz” Agile Fairytale. This year the conference will also mix French- and English-speaking sessions, an improvement that should please people working for the multinational corporations and international organizations in the Lake of Geneva area.

Attendance is limited to 100 people, so be quick to register on http://www.xpday.ch/

OpenSourceScrum.com is a new directory of open source tools for Scrum containing also links to tools reviews.

If you know a missing tool or a good review of an included tool, just let us know.

Test Complex Applications - Including AJAX - Simply and Reliably Functional & Regression Testing, RIA Monitoring, Server Loading All From The Same Tests, The Same Test Engine

This book provides a structured approach that will help programmers to identify and remove bugs in code. It is based on a four steps process: Reproduce, Diagnose, Fix, Reflect. For each activity, the author provides practical material on how perform it. The second part gives a higher vision of the debugging process and deal with topics like communicating with users or prioritizing bugs treatment. Finally, the book discusses special situations and the relationship between bugs and other areas of software development (source control, build, etc.).

This article  presents how to lead the transition to an Agile process.

As recent online sales figures have shown increasing numbers of us are choosing the Internet for our regular purchases and to access services such as banking and utilities. Last  year online sales totalled over £40billion in the UK alone making the development of a Web storefront something no serious retailer can afford to ignore.

Author:  Paul Caine, http://www.blucap.co.uk/

I am currently reading the excellent "Debug It!" book written by Paul Butcher and I wanted to share with you some of the little gems that I have found in it.