Whether it’s Agile Software Development or Test Driven Development, every year new systems of code and project management spring up like tullips. Each one comes with loyal devotees who swear by it and denounce all the other heathen religions.

Scott Berkun feels that none of the current models accurately describe the way software development actually happens. Sure, you may be aspiring to adhere to the tenants of the Rational Unified Process (RUP), but isn’t Asshole Driven Development (ADD) a more accurate description? Or maybe Cover Your Ass Engineering (CYAE)?

Check out Scott’s full list and be sure to read the user submitted additions.

The dearth of women in math and science has been discussed frequently. Computer science and programming is part of that same picture. It is obvious to everyone that the ratio is seriously lop-sided. But determining exactly why and what, if anything, we can do about it is not as obvious.

A few months ago, I followed with interest a thread started by Jason Kottke about the poor ratio of female to male speakers at web conferences. Later posts on this thread are here, here, here, here and here. (There were many others…)

I have helped to plan many conferences over the last ten years, and the editorial teams I’ve been on have always taken into account gender when considering the session line-up. And we have always asked “Where are all the women? How can we get more women speakers?” Jeffrey Zeldman sums up my conclusion well when he writes “The problem is visible at the top because it exists at the bottom.”

One of my other conclusions is that women have to be very involved in any discussion of the problems and solutions. No, scratch that—women need to lead the discussion about this topic. They know better than any man what the barriers are for women. If we want answers and solutions, I think we have to start there. (Plus men don’t always do a good job of it on their own.) Exactly this kind of discussion took place between a group of women developers at RailsConf 2007 and it’s now a podcast so we can all listen in.

Ruby on Rails Podcast — Roundtable: Women in Development

• Part I (MP3, 26 minutes)
• Part II (MP3, 20 minutes)

The podcast is a round-table discussion on the state of women in open source programming. It features Jen May Wu, Dr. Ana Nelson, Liz Summerfield, Sandy Metz, Carmelyne Thompson, Cynthia Kaiser, and Desi McAdam, and it is moderated by Geoffrey Grosenbach. To share just one insightful tidbit from their discussion: they mention how many technology companies only give out men’s t-shirts and how much they appreciate companies that bother to stock both men and women’s t-shirts. A great point.

And if you are planning a conference, event or featuring people who work in technology, be sure to check out the “List of Women Speakers for Your Conference” compiled by Jen Bekman.

There were no blog posts yesterday because on Tuesday night I couldn’t stand it anymore and sprung for a spiffy new MacBook Pro. Then I took up my usual “blog time” on Wednesday setting it up and transfering all my files over. More on that process in a minute…

First, let me say I’m very happy with my purchase. I’ve been on a 15″ PowerBook G4 for years and was starting to feel it creak. The increased speed and Intel chip were the main reasons I made the move. The new LCD monitor (which I love), built in iSight, more RAM, larger HD, better graphics card, two-finger trackpad and magnetic power connection are all very nice perks. I can actually use Spotlight now! Spotlight was so slow before that I was better off digging for the files myself.

I chose the 15-inch again. The 17-inch just felt too cumbersome for travel (about an inch longer and wider, and 1.4 pounds heavier) and I use a supplemental monitor when I’m in the office anyway. I went with the matte/anti-glare screen instead of the glossy. It’s supposed to have better color fidelity, but I was more concerned about overhead lights in my office reflecting into my eyes while I develop. And since speed was my main reason for trading-up, I went with the 2.4GHz model. While it does feel a little underwhelming to pay so much money for something that looks pretty much the same on the outside, the improvement under the hood was worth it.

Transferring files and configurations over was an interesting process. Apple lets you do a slick “suck all your old stuff onto your new computer” during installation set up. Since I have a lot of developer bits installed in odd places, I was wondering how much it would grab. The answer is: 100% of the non-developer bits and 0% of the developer bits.

I took a few notes on the steps I needed to take to get everything moved over. In case it’s helpful to anyone else, I’ll post them after the jump.

(more…)

Today is the last day to participate in A List Apart’s first annual Web Design Survey.

In their words: “People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?”

The survey ends tomorrow, May 22nd, and took me about 10 minutes to complete. Selected participants, chosen by random drawing, will win a free ticket to one of their events; a 30GB iPod, a jump drive, or a t-shirt. You can fill it out anonymously too, but then you can’t win stuff.

I love this idea. Full Code Press is a competition between web development teams to build a complete website for a charitable organization in 24 hours. They’ll have complete freedom as to the platform: HTML, Ruby on Rails, LAMP, or whatever else they like. Each team is made up of seven web members, and all of the teams compete at the same location on the same day. At the end of 24 hours, a team of judges will select the winner.

The first event will be held in Australia on August 18-19, 2007 between Australia and New Zealand. In May 2008 early February 2008, they will be hosting a worldwide challenge, open to teams from all countries, to be held in Wellington, New Zealand.

Interested teams and interested charities can get more information and sign up on their website. If you can’t attend, they plan to make it possible for you to follow the event online via blogs, interviews, Twitter and YouTube.

Personally, I’d love to see this event spread to other countries. Developers often get requests to do pro bono work for charities, but developers are usually either booked with paying clients or looking for more paying work. The charities can’t offer cash, but through contests like this they can offer something that developers covet even more—bragging rights.

Zend has announced PHP Abstract, a twice weekly podcast for PHP developers. “Each episode features a different special guest bringing you their expertise, compressed into a five to seven minute package.”

I think Zend knows a thing or two about PHP. Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski, two of Zend’s founders, are key contributors to PHP and creators of the open source Zend Engine.

The first episode will be June 5th. Should be good.

Two quick codas to yesterday’s post regarding the Microsoft-Free Software Foundation Cold War.

Wired has “Big Guns Jump on Open-Source Bandwagon for New Web Apps”, an article about how Sun, Adobe and Microsoft (cough, cough) are “starting to adopt a hybrid approach to software development that marries traditional proprietary programming practices with open-source ideals.”

O’Reilly’s blog has a post by Allison Randal about the new version of the GPL. She wishes they had tried for more clarity and simplicty instead of dense legalese.

The Fortune magazine article “Microsoft takes on the free world” has gotten a lot of press today. It’s a long article that outlines generally the history of the free and open-source software movement and in particular how Microsoft is readying for patent claims against Linux. The complete article is well-written and full of details, but I’ll attempt to sum it up for you.

Microsoft claims that Linux infringes 235 of its patents and wants royalties for what it sees as its intellectual property. The Free Software Foundation (FSF), started by Richard Stallman, wrote and maintains the GNU General Public License (GPL) which applies to Linux. The GPL requires that the software be entirely free (making royalty payments to Microsoft problematic), that the source code be open to the public and free to reuse, and, most importantly, that any software that uses GPL code also follow the same GPL terms.

(more…)

O’Reilly has posted their quarterly State of the Computer Book Market for Q1 of 2007.

The report is in three four parts: Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV

Some of the web and programming topics on the rise since last year are: Ruby on Rails, Ruby, Flex, .NET, Python, SQL server, MySQL, Agile programming, JavaScript and Ajax.

Programming topics in decline are: ASP, JSP, C/C++, C#, Java, Perl, and Visual Basic.

It’s worth a look, especially if you are wondering if your skills are in step with the larger market.

[Via Riding Rails]

Update: Links for part 3 and 4 added.

Welcome!

I hope that this blog will be a good resource for fellow web developers using Ruby on Rails, PHP, HTML, CSS, and SQL. My goal for this blog is to post code examples, techniques, and tips as well as community news items. Most of what I know about programming can be credited to the help of others or to personal experience, and I hope this blog will give me a chance to share some of what I’ve learned with the community.

Why Null is Love? I liked it because it is a simple programming-like assertion with philosophical possibilities. Null is common to many programming languages and Love has a community vibe to it. (And through dumb luck, the acronym is nil, the alternative to null.) But mostly, I just liked the sound of the phrase. It’s reminds me of Björk’s “All is Full of Love”. And how can you not like sexy robots…

I’ve never blogged before, so it may take me some time to “get my sea legs”. I hope you find it useful and I hope you’ll stick around.

—Kevin Skoglund