Synesthesia

I’ve mentioned in previous posts (1, 2, 3, 4) that I’ve been having a small play with Iceberg, the workflow automation system from Fractis. Their tagline is “Build Workflow Powered Applications Without Coding”, an appealing concept to many. So how well do I think they have achieved it? In terms of relatively straightforward applications, the [...]

I’m trying out Iceberg, the workflow automation platform. In previous posts I described adding some basic forms, views and processes in the context of a sample application. Today I’ve been experimenting with the security model. It seems both complex and powerful, with the downside that the online help seems to be only 25% populated in this [...]

I’m trying out Iceberg, the workflow automation platform. In my last post I described starting to build an application, based on this outline specification. I had just got to the point of trying to meet the first acceptance criterion on the first user story (all Project Issues must be uniquely identifiable) when I came to [...]

I’m trying out Iceberg, the workflow automation platform. In my previous post I decided what application I was going to build, and wrote the first two user stories. Again, I’m using the Iceberg User Guide to guide me. The first thing that is quite confusing is that the environment within which you are building your [...]

I’m trying out Iceberg, the workflow automation platform. Having successfuly installed the platform on my laptop I want to start building something. Of course, the two key questions before building any software (assuming the “Why?” in this case) are “What?” and “How?”. For the “How?”, Iceberg provide a good overview on their support pages, which [...]

As mentioned in my last post, I’m trying out Iceberg. Iceberg offer an “all in one” installer using the Cassini webserver, or for more complex installs you can download a zip file with the web application and a configuration script. As I already have SQLExpress and IIS7 in my laptop I chose the latter. The [...]

This Read/Write Web article led me to Iceberg, a product from Irish company Fractis which aims to make it possible for non-programmers to rapidly assemble business workflow applications. The applicationn, now at version 2.1, is based on ASP.NET  and SQL Server, and is available as a free download. Licensing is free for non-profits or for [...]

Developer.* has published Places To Intervene In a System by the late Donella Meadows, with an afterword by Don Gray applying the thinking to software devleopment. Thought-provoking stuff – Meadows herself cautions that the essay is not a recipe for finding leverage points. Rather it’s an invitation to think more broadly about system change. In [...]

OpenOffice OLE Bridge produces error when trying to set properties from Ruby

The theme of Blogwalk IV was the use of social software inside the firewall. We noted that there were certain technological barriers to be overcome before the tools were sufficiently invisible to support a wide acceptance of corporate blogging / wiki etc. I agreed to start some work to define the requirements of the ideal internal corporate blog / wiki tool so I've started writing some initial user requirements in the wiki. The root of the notes is at IntraBliki, please join in if you are interested.

“Extreme Programming and the Economics of Flexibility”:http://www.favaro.net/john/home/publications/xpecon.pdf [PDF] via “Agile Business Coach”:http://abc.truemesh.com/

“Chris Matts”:http://abc.truemesh.com/ “points”:http://abc.truemesh.com/archives/000306.html to a paper he co-authored with “Andy Pols”:http://www.pols.co.uk/blog/index.html on “Business Value-driven Software Development”:http://www.pols.co.uk/business-coach/BusinessValueDrivenDevelopment.pdf (PDF) Sounds like obvious common sense to me, which presumably means it doesn’t happen as much as it could in the real world! In “another post(Documents Create Antagonism)”:http://abc.truemesh.com/archives/000305.html he also puts his finger on a common problem with “Big [...]

Summary notes from chapter 3 of Lean Software Development by Mary and Tom Poppendieck

Summary notes from chapter 2 of Lean Software Development by Mary and Tom Poppendieck

Summary notes from chapter 1 of Lean Software Development by Mary and Tom Poppendieck