Once again, this year's JavaOne conference, held in June in San Francisco, California, USA, was larger and more exciting than ever with more than 18,000 attendees and some 350 vendors.

Once again, this year's JavaOne conference, held in June in San Francisco, California, USA, was larger and more exciting than ever with more than 18,000 attendees and some 350 vendors.

Why are so many software organizations interested in estimating projects better?

Why are so many software organizations interested in estimating projects better?

There's no point in being exact about something if you don't even know what you're talking about.

-- John von Neumann

There's no point in being exact about something if you don't even know what you're talking about.

-- John von Neumann

Imagine you are undertaking a tricky updating of a legacy back office application. The objective is to provide a front end accessible via the company's intranet for data entry and reporting.

Imagine you are undertaking a tricky updating of a legacy back office application. The objective is to provide a front end accessible via the company's intranet for data entry and reporting.

There is no way to avoid it; a major part of the future world of corporate and inhouse IT is largely being shaped around packaged solutions and a specialized subset of them -- enterprise resource pl

There is no way to avoid it; a major part of the future world of corporate and inhouse IT is largely being shaped around packaged solutions and a specialized subset of them -- enterprise resource pl

Recently, a colleague of mine forwarded the following headline to me via e-mail. It read:

The current upsurge of component-based development (CBD) reflects the attraction of the plug-and-play metaphor in software development. A component is a black box that talks to its customers through its interfaces alone. Simply plug the boxes together, and there's an application. Great! So why is CBD not the cure-all that some folks would have us believe? There are lots of answers to that question. Right now, I'd like to focus on one piece: specification.

I recently moved my bank account to a new institution because the customer experience at my current bank was so painful that it was starting to cost me money (in terms of my time and energy level) to deal with them. When I went in to close my account, I expected the service representative to ask me why I was withdrawing every last penny I had in their institution (I had previously closed out my retirement savings, my mortgage, my business account, and a small personal savings account).

Recently, a colleague of mine forwarded the following headline to me via e-mail. It read:

Recently, a colleague of mine forwarded the following headline to me via e-mail. It read: