Answer My Query

Enterprises continue to expand the use of cloud computing, and particularly software-as-a-service applications (SaaS), to achieve operational performance enhancements and efficiencies. Implementation of these technologies introduces several challenges related to identity management, such as administration and delegation of account authentication and authorization.

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Hubspan, a provider of cloud-based business integration solutions, is launching a suite of new integration connectors for SciQuest suppliers . The new WebSpan SaaS Connectors for SciQuest include punchout, price and availability, purchase order and e-invoicing. For a limited time, Hubspan is offering SciQuest suppliers a special 2 for 1 pricing on the new connectors.

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SYS-CON Events today announced that Neustar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR), a leading provider of managed services that enable communication across networks, applications and enterprises, is confirmed as an exhibitor at SYS-CON's 5th International Cloud Expo. This year’s event will take place on April 19-21, 2010 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.

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I have noticed with myself (actually I know this for a very long time now already) that I am much more productive in the evenings then I am at the end of a working day. I also just finished reading Programming is all Design by Joakim Holman, Why Design Cannot be Billed by the Hour by Steve Zelle, Software on the Cheap by Uncle Bob Martin and The Design Dilemma by Kent Beck which made me want to put my thoughts into writing.

Now the main topic in these blog posts is design, writing Software is about design and not about producing code. And that design is an easily overlooked topic within the software industry. Sure for us developers our end product is the functionality that our code delivers, but the way we chose to get there makes a difference like between night and day. In the end choosing the road that leads through design is the more optimal path for creating software (I am aware that there are exceptions). Also note the interesting move from calling TDD Test Driven Development to Test Driven Design and even Design by Example.

Now design means thinking, because we need to really understand the problem space and find a solution that we think will solve a particular problem the best way possible given our constraints without eliminating the possibility that we were wrong. And also that it is a continuous process that will drive software development throughout the whole lifetime of the project.

So it is fair to say that this takes effort? I would actually say that it takes a lot of effort. So considering this assumption I can also safely assume that we would do a better job in the morning then in the afternoon? Right? Well I know I do, that is until I take a break and do something completely different and then after that continue to work on the problem. After such a break I have been able to recharge my internal battery and my mind is ready to do some more serious work.

So my ideal day is 4 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the evening. The time in between is my spare time where I can enjoy the weather (if only I didn’t live in Bergen), get the kids early from kindergarten or even do some shopping with my wife. Then after this change of focus I would continue to work on the problem space, but now fully recharged.

This brings some obvious problems along the way, one of them is that pairing (a practice that I value very much, read more about that here and here) becomes very difficult because most of your college’s would not be slicing the day like this. Remote pairing would solve some of these issues I believe.

One minimum step that I believe we should all consider is to move any meetings you have to the second part of the day, giving your full focus to the more difficult parts of the job, Designing software.

Now what I like to know from you is; what are your thoughts about this?

The 451 Group tried imagining what VMware, which just bought Zimbra from Yahoo, still needs to buy and came up with a list including: * CRM house Chordiant Software, which recently refused an unsolicited offer from CDC; * open source enterprise Java scalability and availability house Terracotta, already a distributed caching partner of VMware acquisition SpringSource capable of making a single server behave like many; * data management house Gemstone Systems; * open source Spring-based visual Java-based IDE house Skyway Software, another SpringSource familiar that could lend SpringSource an RIA/mashups environment; * and open source integration ISVs MuleSoft or more likely Germany's Sopera. VMware bought SpringSource last summer for $420 million so it could build a PaaS platform out it for developing private clouds.

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