Paying off your software debt

How often have you heard heard it said, “How much will it cost me to have new feature (x)?”. If you’re in business and you commission bespoke software or if you’re a software developer or project manager you’ll have heard this before. The truth is there are two answers to this question: “as cheap as possible despite making things harder in the future”, or “take the time now to re-factor (re-work) existing code to make a clean enhancement”. Read the story »

Queuing for the first bite of the Apple.

I suppose it had to happen eventually. This morning I finally succumbed to the cult of Mac and having been persuaded by the WWDC conference videos and a certain Apple fanboy friend of mine, I decided to get up bright and early to queue at an O2 store and see if I could get my hands on the new iPhone 3Gs. Read the story »

Apple’s WWDC keynote in 2.5 hours. My predictions below :)

Apple are having their annual Worldwide Developers Conference today and I fully expect a healthy Steve Jobs will be presenting in his own inimitable style. Although no-one knows for sure it is customary for Apple to announce their latest improvements to their OSX “Leopard” operating system, any upcoming technical changes to their desktop computers, laptops, iPhone and iPod. Read the story »