A summary of three online articles that I have found interesting in the past week. A one stop shop for the Internet of Things The buzz surrounding the Internet of Things (IoT) has been building for at least a couple of years now with news coverage reaching an almost chaotic crescendo this week, thanks to …
Process based ideas generation
Focus on processes, not technology This morning I was watching an inspirational video about the part Jeffrey Zeldman has played in shaping the web as we know it today. In the early days of the Internet, the life of a web developer was plagued by browsers that competed with each other by constantly releasing innovative yet proprietary features. Zeldman was instrumental in bringing about the widespread …
Create your own bug list
Over the Christmas holidays I have been reading the excellent book Conceptual Blockbusting: A guide to better ideas, by James L. Adams. The book begins by introducing several type of conceptual blocks, such as cultural conventions or restrictive thought patterns, that stifle creative problem solving, before going on to describe methods for busting through these barriers. …
How to disable your car’s firewall
The power and perils of OBD-II In 2010, the Centre for Automotive Embedded Systems Security demonstrated the devastating consequences that could arise should malicious attackers gain access to the on-board diagnostics port (OBD-II) that has been fitted to most vehicles since the mid 1990s. This collaborative group of academic researchers from the University of California San Diego and …
An introduction to software product line engineering
This article is based on examinable work that I submitted for the postgraduate Open University module M813 – Software Development. Software components With the end of the 19th century came the introduction of the now ubiquitous form of transportation that is the automobile. Early models were mostly hand crafted by skilled operators and priced accordingly, which …
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The roundup – week 51
A summary of four online articles that I have found interesting in the past week. The ‘ghost car’ concept This week, the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s E&T magazine featured an article showcasing two impressive in-car technologies currently being developed by Jaguar Land Rover. Firstly, the ‘ghost car’ concept demonstrates a dramatically new take on traditional satellite …
Software project failure rates
In order for a project to be classified as successful, it must satisfy three criteria: its outputs must be of the agreed quality, they must be delivered in the agreed timescale, and they must be delivered at the agreed price. The two studies below show that around a quarter of the software projects involved failed catastrophically (i.e. cancelled or delivered …
The roundup – week 50
A summary of three online articles that I have found interesting in the past week. The benefits of peer review In this article, Jack Ganssle sings the praises of code inspections; citing one study which claims that such inspections are ten to 34 times cheaper than testing. A second study is also cited, which claims that …
Picking the low hanging fruit (or harvesting the easy seeds)
Yesterday as I was carrying a new set of car floor mats into the house they brushed against a small flower that had recently died due to the onset of winter, but which had not yet released its seeds. A handful of the seeds became stuck to one of the mats, leaving me with the task of trying …
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No comprende the non-functional requirements: Part 2
In a previous post I discussed my difficulty in understanding the concept of non-functional requirements and how I planned to attend a lecture on the subject provided by my local branch of the Chartered Institute for IT. Having now sat through this lecture, I am relieved to know that I was not alone in my confusion; and overjoyed that the concept …
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