The central perspective that underlies most of the articles featured on this blog could be summarised by the notion of ‘software as discourse’. I would like to give an overview of what this concept means to me from a theoretical point of view, on which assumptions it relies, and what it entails from a methodological [...]
I am currently working on a medium-size web development project for a public organisation: the project is implemented by a small, agile team of developers external to the organisation (rather talented I must say!) on the basis of specifications written by myself and my colleague. These specs mostly consist on word documents as well as [...]
Although only remotely connected to what should be the main concern for software development projects (that is to say that the specifications are right), the interplay of power relationships between stakeholders can really cause a lot of damage. I am not talking only about tensions that may arise between, for example, the sales team and [...]
I try and follow a few number of simple principles when I develop the front-end of enterprise web applications (that is to say web applications which aim is to support the processes of a particular organisation), both to inform design decisions and to avoid scope creep. The main approach I tend to follow and advocate [...]
In recent years, ‘software developers’ have traveled quite a distance in public imagination, from spotty-faced sociopathic nerds to geek chic alpha males. Some may want my head on a spike for such an appalling short cut, but one could argue that this change in the way software engineers are represented in cultural discourse may be [...]
Overview of the Proposed Research Topic During the relatively short history of software development, several development methods have been introduced, from the rather standard waterfall model derived from development methods that can be found in more ‘traditional’ industries (Royce, 1970), to solutions more adapted to the particular issues involved in software development such as user-centered [...]