A little curiosity

Here comes another little curiosity. In my latest two webapp projects I started to use Struts2 as MVC framework. I must say I am very happy with this framework and it it a big step forward from Struts1. Especially the interceptor approach is extremely flexible. The one aspect of Struts2, however, I am still struggling with is the combination of JSTL and OGNL, but this might offer enough material for a whole separate blog entry. The little curiosity I wanted to write about is where I found some working documentation on (J)unit testing my Struts2 actions. Digging on several relevant forums I was unable to come up with a working apporach. Finally I got lucky - on a fan side for the sport clubs Raptors and Arsenal! This is the post I am referring to http://arsenalist.com/2007/06/18/unit-testing-struts-2-actions-spring-junit/. By now I learned that the owner of the site is a Systems Analyst who is a fan of the Raptors and Arsenal.
Nevertheless my initial surprise when finding this blog was genuine :)

Am I suffering from the line cook syndrom?

You probably think:"Now he finally went bananas.", but let me explain. I should start with the fact that I consider myself a half way decent hobby cook and I definitely never say no to a decent meal. As a result I also enjoy the occasional culinary literature amongst others Anthony's Bourdain's Kitchen Condidential or my latest read - Bill Buford's Heat. In Heat Bill Buford embarks on a mission to learn the secrets of preparing food by joining a famous chef (Mario Batali) in his New York restaurant. He starts off as a kitchen slave and slowly works himself up to become a line cook. However, he also realizes that there is only so much to learn as a line cook. He produces great food, however always under the constraint that it has to be fast, re-producible and consistent. The love is missing. As he sees several of his working colleagues going to Italy to really learn the art of cooking (Mario's restaurant servers Italian-American food) he decides to join them and go back to the roots. He wants to learn how food is prepared with love, in small restaurants using recipes handed down by generations.

I feel somehow in a similar way. I love working with computers. I choose my career, because I love doing what I am doing. However, working as a consultant I feel more and more as a software line cook. My task is to solve similar problem over and over again using proven recipes. Preferably arriving at the final product faster and faster, increasing productivity. As I do so I feel my passion for the craft more and more disappearing. When was the last time I used one of these beautiful algorithms out of Programming Pearls? A long time ago! Maybe it is time for me to embark on a trip to rediscover the beauty of programming.

So, now you now what a line cook and software developer have in common. Quite a bit :) - and if you are into food I highly recommend Heat.

Bon appetite
Hardy

Agile maintenance releases

Damon Poole has an interesting post about agile development "by mistake". He argues that the most agile release type in not-aware-of-agile environments is the maintenance release. It typically improves quality a lot and adds a number of select features that are really needed by the users of the system. This is consistent with my own experience. Often a major release is followed by a number of maintenance releases that is developed in a very agile way. It seems that the proximity of a release is making a team more agile.