A few weeks ago, I wrote about how replacing an existing system is a bad idea and refactoring is a better direction. In that post I said: Generally, wholesale re-engineering of a system is a bad idea, because the system still serves a purpose and its’ functionality is a moving target. If the system does [...]

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Last week, I read a post at High Scalability talking about getting research out of academic environments. There is a lot of technology that starts as academic research, but there is a problem with some research being adopted by other technologists. That post has a very good explanation of why: Over the years I’ve read [...]

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If you talk to a programmer, almost all software sucks, even the programs they wrote a few months ago. This is typically due to changing technology, increased knowledge or even a market shift. The software you wrote may have been a good idea when you started, but does it serve the correct purpose now? Even [...]

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By now you have heard about the controversy surrounding WordPress and Thesis, the premium WordPress theme. Matt Mullenweg has previously expressed his disapproval of premium themes and plugins that are used with WordPress. His defense is that WordPress is licensed using the GPL, and anything that runs with it should be as well. Things have [...]

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This post is inspired by a question on LinkedIn but I felt required a full blog post to really explain the answer. There are plenty of companies that still develop their applications using the traditional waterfall model, or even a complete lack of formalized processes. This is somewhat surprising considering the amount of information available [...]

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