August 2011
1 post
Social Login through Gigya API
We recently had to implement “social authentication” for an application with a Ruby on Rails back-end. More precisely, the ability to log in through Facebook, Google, Twitter and so on.
Gigya is a service that provides an API for this, so that developers don’t have to deal with the particulars of the particulars of each API. (Facebook’s API has been voted the worst ever)
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November 2010
1 post
My review of the Strange Loop Developer Conference...
I have recently attended two conferences: Hadoop World 2010, here in New York City, and Strange Loop 2010, in St. Louis, MO. Strange Loop’s location was, you could say, the strangest of these two, but it proved astoundingly strategic: as it’s near the middle of the U.S. people from all over the country were able to attend it, and sure enough I met a lot of people from both the West and East coast,...
Process excellency not a guarantee of success
(Originally posted on October 7th, 2010)
One of the main tenets of the Agile methodologies, exemplified in the Agile manifesto, is “people and communication over process and tools”. Thus, one is led to believe that Agility is not a process, but some kind of overarching, magical recipe that has the power, by itself, to guarantee success.
Some who subscribe to this extreme view will then...
Agile Contracts: what are they?
(Originally posted on May 19th, 2009)
It’s a question that often gets asked and puzzles even the top managers of many consulting companies.
If you are going “Agile”, how to go about negotiating contracts? Aren’t “fixed bids” fundamentally incompatible with Agile? If so, then how can you handle potential clients who want a number to be quoted?
It turns out there are a number of ways to go...
More IT projects failing - Standish Report 2009
(Originally posted on May 13th, 2009)
The 2009 Standish report on the success of IT projects is out. Perhaps surprisingly, it shows that there has an increase in failure of IT projects, from previous years
http://www.standishgroup.com/newsroom/chaos_2009.php
“This year’s results show a marked decrease in project success rates, with 32% of all projects succeeding which are delivered on time,...
Navigating Company Politics
(Originally posted on May 7, 2009)
(by Joe Little. Posted with permission). In the course of my work, I hear people talk about how hard is to get things done in organizations. (This happened again recently.)
And I know from personal experience too, it is hard.
But I wanted to emphasize that organizational politics is not as hard as we make it for ourselves (at least sometimes it is not).
...
Product Owner’s responsibilities in Agile software...
(Originally posted on Aug 24, 2008)
According to the Standish report, “User Involvement” has been ranked as the number-one factor in software projects success. The following is the complete list of factors found to significantly impact success:
User Involvement
Executive Management Support
Clear Business Objectives
Optimizing Scope
Agile Process
Project Manager Expertise
Financial...
Advices for hiring engineering talent
Originally posted on: June 16th, 2008
Recruiting software professionals for a new technology is difficult. Coupled with a general job-seeker’s market and a region short on technical talent in general results in an even more serious problem. Such was our experience with one of our New York City-based clients; the particular technology in question was Ruby on Rails (RoR).
As with every...