“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
Category Archives: Tangents and Asides
Tangents, side notes, and other things that are off-topic, yet noteworthy.
Team Names – Gotta Have a Slogan
One early, easy win to be had when organizing a new Scrum team is to let the team members name their team. It takes less than five minutes out of the first Scrum planning meeting, but gets team building and camaraderie off to a great start.
Encourage everyone to come prepared with at least one name suggestion each, along with a slogan for each name. Winning names always seem to have a catchy slogan.
Bugzilla Quip about NPE’s
If you use Bugzilla, here’s a quip for your quips file:
Seeing "Null Pointer Exception" in a log4j log is like smelling a fart in a crowded room. You are painfully aware there's a problem, but the culprit is never obvious.
“Why are manhole covers round?”
The famous Microsoft interview process (as described by William Poundstone in "How Would You Move Mount Fuji? Microsoft’s Cult of the Puzzle…") asks the candidate, among other things, to solve puzzles such as the quintessential question, “Why are manhole covers round?” It’s a question with multiple answers (see below), and the interviewer is looking for how the candidate approaches the question more than what answers are givens.
I view this question as a quintessential example of simplicity. Continue reading “Why are manhole covers round?”