Talking TDD and Agile on RedMonk Radio with Coté

Coté and I talked Agile the other day for an episode of RedMonk Radio. He was kind enough to invite me into the studio as a result of my recent chapter in an Agile SQA book. We started off covering TDD and the book, but quickly got in more general topics on Agile “in the wild” as Coté would say.

Coté – you self-criticize in your post about editorializing, but you actually do a good job directing a conversation and keeping it moving. Hey man, we’re in the post-modern world and interviewers are allowed to be part of the conversation. Social dichotomies are so 1.0! I did like the setup reference to your secret mental file – a special bonus to listeners who can identify that.

Technorati tags: agile, tdd, test driven development, podcast, redmonk

An Actually Good Podcast On SOA

So I am woefully behind on all of my technology podcast listening ever since I discovered JapanesePod101. But if you have not already done so, you need to go out and listen to the RedMonk / NetManage podcast from RmR on Incremental SOA.

James and Cote talk to Archie Roboostoff of NetManage and actually discuss small scale, bottom up SOA implementations as a viable approach! It’s refreshing – though a meaty SOA strategy does require some amount of top down support, you can still have a get-things-done attitude and deliver.

Technorati tags: SOA, netmanage, redmonk, redmonkradio

Office 2.0 Podcast Jam is On

It’s official – the Office 2.0 Podcast Jam Is On! Anne tossed out the idea recently (you really need to read the full comment thread on that fantastic post) and the idea has got legs. She called my bluff and I’m in, along with a bunch of other bloggers/writers/podcasters (far more interesting than I).

If BarCamp is the original unconference, then a podcast jam by non-participants is the new ununconference. I will be podcasting on Office 2.0 For The Enterprisey, and have some thoughts down already. Please share yours if you have something to contribute, or have questions I should address. Also, please followup with Anne (or me if you prefer, but she’s the real brains behind this) if you are interested in contributing a podcast.

Technorati Tags : office20, podcast, podcastjam, barcamp, unconference, ununconference, enterprisey

Great Podcast on XSS

I saw this great podcast on cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks come through on Sam’s del.icio.us links. Dan Kuykendall covers the anatomy of an XSS vulnerability starting at square one.

If you are somewhat familiar with XSS this might be review, but I strongly recommend it if you are looking for a place to start becoming familiar with XSS. Dan walks through a few types of vulnerabilities, and has a honeypot web site where you can try them out during the podcast. He even goes so far as to walk you through some examples that don’t work – giving you insight into how crackers have to probe to fine vulnerabilities.

Great job, Dan and thanks for the tip, Sam. If anyone else has good sources for XSS info, please comment or for: me in del.icio.us.

Sam is also posting some great stuff on Ajax security, so be sure to check that out, too.

Technorati Tags : XSS, cross-site scripting

Must listen: Jon Udell and Lou Rosenfeld

I am finally catching up on my podcast listening – two
key factors are responsible. For one thing, my otherwise extremely cool
employer decided to move my office 25 miles away so now I have a lovely commute
with plenty of think time. The other is that I decided to spoil myself,
and finally blew a pile of money squirreled away in mattresses on an iPod. Was it a stretch to
make this part of my commute coping strategy? I don’t think so – this is
precious podcast time!

Anyhow, I finally listened to Jon Udell’s
conversation with Lou Rosenfeld, and this is a fantastic listen. Jon’s
title for this conversation is “A conversation with Lou Rosenfeld about search
analytics, information architecture, and designing for usability”, but that
doesn’t do it justice. They discuss the false dichotomy of folksonomies
and controlled vocabularies, the process of creating and consuming meta
information, and microformats among many other topics. Lou calls this “an
interesting and wandering discussion” and he’s right on.

I have been a subscriber to both Jon and Lou for quite awhile now and they do not
disappoint. Lou covered some of his upcoming publishing efforts, and the
notion of participatory publishing. So you should definitely get in on the action if this
is your field or interest area.

Technorati tags: podcast, jon udell, lou rosenfeld, information architecture, search analytics, folksonomies

Scaling Down, Open Source-*, and RMR Episode 10

Anyone who has read this blog previously knows I’m a huge fan of Redmonk Radio. I am woefully behind on podcast listening – my podcasts folder is about as bad as my need-to-read research folder while I wait for someone to send me a free iPod – but I just got through Episode 10 on “Adobe Live, DRM, Freemium, JavaOne, Predictions”.

The title might not advertise it, but this is actually a great redux discussion on open source business models and the freemium concept. This is a great, if indirect, listen for anyone who needs to understand how open and free models actually increase the value of your core offering, rather than cannabalize it. In particular, I liked Cote‘s comments on the idea that in the world of services and information (arguably even physical products) ultimately you are paying for a relationship – there are just different variations of how the contract and license are structured. But the relationship holds the real compensatory value. Open source is often discussed in the context of software licensing, here Redmonk discusses it in the context of open source analysis. But the concepts and model are much more generally applicable – call it OS-* …

This listen came at a great time for me as I had just read this article on long tail-ish thoughts. I don’t quite know where I’m going with my own mash of these thoughts, but my mind is churning.

In large companies, there is still often a hold-it-close mindset even within the walls – information sharing should happen a lot more than it actually does. The RMR conversation has great applicability here, because you should share freely whatever you can in order to more quickly get to the true value of your services and skills. I’m also hot on the centralization topic lately – this is a very natural tendency of many EAs and many corporate IS groups, but it’s not automatically the right idea. It’s enterprisey and all that, but EAs should actually be scouring their organizations for hidden long tails.

The real value of EA should be building services and infrastructure to enable the smallest and most agile business processes imaginable, not building behemoths.

Technorati Tags : redmonk, open source, long tail, freemium, enterprisey, os-*

Check Me Out On RedMonk Radio

First Chris Dalby got to say it, not I get to say it, too: check me out on RedMonkRadio! Episode 8 is entitled “Scott Mark’s Industry Analyst Interviews, part 1: James Governor and Coté” and is the culmination of some idea-kicking-around I have been doing with James and Coté for some time.

I have been a podcast listener for awhile, and this is my debut as a participant in any podcast. It’s kind of an odd thing – just recording a conversation among friends and broadcasting it to the world. I found it fun to do and to listen to, but I’m genuinely curious if others do. I do think the topic itself is interesting and would expect others to be interested in it as well. But the odd part is thinking that one of my conversations is interesting enough for others to take time to listen to. It got at least 3 plays on Odeo, but I suppose that was just the admin who posted it. 😉

Drop a comment somewhere if you listened – we have been kicking around some other names for this as a mini-series if people are actually interested. Though Coté titled it part1, so I supposed I’m committed whether you guys like it or not!

My First Comment in Spanish

I left my first blog comment in Spanish over at Alvaro Gregori’s blog – a great post on things 2.0.

One of my declared goals for 2006 was to work on an opportunity to lecture or train at the University of Costa Rica, where I studied abroad in college. So far, I have drafted a proposal, and now need to refine and determine who the lucky recipient at UCR will be. If there happens to be a UCR reader out there, I would love a referral.

A couple of things I would like community help from are:

• Recommendations for Spanish language blogs – I would love if anyone could refer me to some good tech blogs that are in Spanish – most interested in enterprise architecture and Java-related blogs, but am not picky and at the moment would prefer any suggestions. I have found a couple, but have not looked to hard yet.
• Spanish translations of tech books – I need these for 2 reasons. One is for my own reading to bone up on tech vocabulary, but the other is to donate to the UCR library or individual students. One of my strongest school-related memories was going to the library to do research and looking something up in the card catalog (yes card catalog – even though this was the early 90s). I got to the stack location, found the title in the classic mono-color library hardbound binding, but opened it up to find a complete photocopied version of the title. This was a surprisingly common thing – I suppose authors and publishers here will freak out, but to me it was a glaring statement of the fact that I was in the developing world, however modern it looked compared to other nations. I saw it as a socio-economic coping strategy and was sympathetic. Anyhow, I will soon be appealing to some certain authors directly, but again would appreciate any thoughts or donations.

I am very conversational socially in Spanish, but my technical vocabulary needs a lot of work if I’m going to talk cool on la vida declarativa, la web 2.0, and other tech topics. It’s my intention to lecture in Spanish unless they would prefer English for their own practice.

So please let me know if you could help out in any way!

Yet More Architecture Podcasts

I posted recently on some architecture-related podcasts… here are a few more thoughts…

• Tried listening to this podcast on enterprise portals – because I think Gotta is a bright guy in the area of portals and social software. First, how hard do you actually want people to work to listen to your content? I swear I had to go through registration like 5 times, and my lucky reward was getting to listen through embedded Windows Media Player. I’m thinking about the basics here – podcast, RSS feed, MP3s, etc. – you would be surprised how many more listeners you get if you free up the content a little. (Note: these comments are directed at CIO Talk Radio, not Mike.) If someone out there had the patience to get through this, please comment and let me know if I missed enough to go back to it.
• Maybe this stretches the bounds of both “architecture” and “podcast” but one of my favorite books is available as a stream or download for free. How cool is that!! I’m going to listen again. What a great thing to be involved in – I would love to read a chapter of Code: Version 2.0 when that comes out. Note that you can contribute to that book.
• Another Burton Group Inflection Point – this time on Skype. Actually a good technical breakdown of the Skype network architecture, things like SuperNodes. A good listen for enterprise folks. Curious why they only let 1 outside person review and publicly report on their encryption practices? You are fully Web 2.0, Skype, and transparency is the name of the game.
• More RedMonk Radio – episodes 4 and 5 – always good. I am working a podcast idea with these folks that will hopefully come to fruition in the next few weeks… stay tuned.

On the to-do list are some architecture-related shows at IT Conversations. Thinking about Lessig and Joel for starters.

More on Architecture Podcasts

A follow up on my previous post, but this one with a slightly more positive bent. 😉

Here are a few of the architecture and development podcasts that I have found useful lately:

• The Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council Open Source SIG has a great podcast on Open Source in the Enterprise. I have only listened to part 2 so far but there is some great discussion around governance and comparison of companies with different cultures and different approaches to evaluation and adoption.
• IT Conversations has an interesting talk by Kent Beck on developer testing. Kent has a very relaxing tone and conversational style – almost hypnotic. (I listened to this while running the other day. I hadn’t run in a very long while, and pushed my 3 mile target into a 5 mile – I thank Kent for putting me into a trance.) He has some good thoughts around thinking in terms of code health rather than quality or coverage and the traditional terms. Code health is the ability to respond to change – a good perspective on ultimately why you should write tests.
• PC Talk Radio – “Entering the Participation Age“. This interview is a rehash / expansion of the talk that Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer at Sun, gave at the Colorado Software Summit last fall. Phipps is a great conversationalist and lays out the interaction framework business models for what it means to have a commons that is built upon by contribution. Good stuff.
• Redmonk episode 1 was overdue – these will be great podcasts. I’m marginally interested in the Writely acquisition, but these guys are a great listen. I see that Episode 2 is already up – nice job, guys!
• On a related note, I have been working my way through various Drunk and Retired podcasts. If you like your tech content strong and straight up, then I suggest you look elsewhere. But I think these are definitely entertaining – Charles and Cote are a couple of bright guys talking software along with zombies and elves (you’ll have to listen to understand). This is the sort of thing I have wanted to do for awhile, but is on the list of probably won’t get to it – a morning talk radio-style technology show.
• I understand from Richard that the Ajaxian podcasts are a good listen, but haven’t grabbed any of those yet.
• Speaking of Richard, Burton Group has started some podcasting, which seem to be in the brief overview segment – refreshing. I just noticed they have one on Skype, which I just got on this week – have to check that out.

Let me know if you have any decent podcasts to suggest…