Life after life of Google Wave

It is a little sad, but Google ends development of Wave product as "Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked".

I liked the whole "Wave" idea presented at Google I/O conference. It was new an powerful tool, covering the features of multiple existing services like instant messengers, chats, forums with threads and more. On the other side, people were scared of initial learning curve, even understanding at the start what is this service for. Compare other successful service Twitter that wins with simple question "what’s happening now" and message box for simple text message. It seams that simplicity of use and ascetic features win in that case.

Wave has unique features like live collaborative editing that I like the most. This is perfect tool for quickly writing documents by collaborating team. Google Wave is open source project ,so I hope such features would be incorporated into on-line editing suites, in a way that makes collaboration almost effortless. It should also take its place on some forum based sites.

If you miss that service, look for Google Wave offspring or make your own service- the code is publicly available.

Software development platforms wars as a movie theme

Summer break make me think about funny side of life.

Check this parody "Java 4 Ever" movie trailer, set in reality of dominance and war between development platforms .



Relax and consider that development platform is only a one of choices for a bigger purpose.

Funny work story - Slippery slope

Although story has a software engineering context, the situation described there seems common for almost all kind of workplaces.
btw. I like the style of www.dadhacker.com posts.

Requirements management story

The development of simple specific project management system was set in motion. There were couple of meetings and email "conversations" about requirements and use cases scenarios. There was one administration like system role valid for period of time when system "project" was running. I asked client few times about replacing user of that role in case of illness days off etc.

It is not important now .....

The answers were: it is not important part of story, we can wait for finishing project business if there is enough time or substitute someone in place using the same system user, and finally there is only one administrative user for single "system project". The message was clear: it is not important, keep going, we can handle situation. The application was simple so it was looking like cutting the corners on unused features.

... but I cannot accept that ...

The story was finished till final acceptance tests. One of the users from client side playing such system "administrative role", get few days off. The other administrative user asks now for guidance because "there was something in manual about replacing users of other role in system projects". After reviewing quick "user doable" solutions he had serious objectives about completeness of the system. So either detailed "walk through" procedure will be enough or new feature have to be added to application functionality as a part of service agreement.

The role of Final user adoption

It's story about little detail but it shows common scenario that very often takes place during software development.
During requirements gathering the project team was planning common usage and sanely limited set of functionalities.
Every user thinks in a different way. Some will understand used functionality set, other will need detailed procedures for every specific situation.
Final user adoption is important thing. That is one of the reasons why so many classic waterfall project models fail. There are also stories about complete systems, agreed on paper but unused or misused by users that just didn't like it.

Spring cleaning time - making room for new activities

The Spring is very worky time for me. I'm not talking about casual house cleaning (I used to do it fast), but mainly about my work context. It's time to finish started projects and make room for new ones and for incoming summer activities. Weather in May is really nice in my place - so I devote some time to biking and long walks. I really didn't want to start another tasks, like writing blog posts about something abstract enough (I still have "blog vs privacy" issues). So please forgive me for long break without posts.

I'm thinking also about blog character- it's now mixed personal/technical blog. I like reading entertaining personal blogs, but that is not a point. It seems people like more specialized thematic blogs, so maybe I should go that way. I don't want to fight for readership with every possible mean, but more viewers means more potential interesting contacts for me.

Yes, I'm talking about you dear reader. So if you are interested in my subjects, or have an project/business idea write me itprolife@gmail.com.

I'm inviting commenters too.