1996 revisited

April 15th, 2009

After receiveing what I believe was the third promotional email from my beloved mobile phone operator, showing this not-so-useful information

Screenshot of empty email

I was curious to see what sort of HTML did not even render images in Safari.

Behold:

<title>Sista chansen: Specialpris på Telia Mobilt bredband</title>
<base target="_blank">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.5730.13" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#818177 leftMargin=0 topMargin=0 marginheight="0" marginwidth="0">
<TABLE height="100%" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" bgColor=#818177 border=0>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top align=middle>
<DIV style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 10px; COLOR: #505050; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif">Ser mailet konstigt ut? <A style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 10px; COLOR: #cf0566; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif" href="#" target=_blank>Klicka här »</A></DIV><BR>
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=590 align=center bgColor=#aaaaa4 border=0>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top align=middle><A href="http://tr.anp.se/track?t=c&mid=250386&uid=124849854&&&http://track.adform.net/C/?bn=212313" target=_blank><IMG alt="Nu höjer vi hastigheten och sänker priset." src="http://adata.attraction.se/Telia/buss14/09-Utskick_v15/images/erbj1.jpg" border=0></A></TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top align=middle><A href="http://tr.anp.se/track?t=c&mid=250386&uid=124849854&&&http://track.adform.net/C/?bn=212313" target=_blank><IMG alt="Nu höjer vi hastigheten och sänker priset." src="http://adata.attraction.se/Telia/buss14/09-Utskick_v15/images/erbj2.jpg" border=0></A></TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top align=middle><A href="http://tr.anp.se/track?t=c&mid=250386&uid=124849854&&&http://track.adform.net/C/?bn=212313" target=_blank><IMG alt="Nu höjer vi hastigheten och sänker priset." src="http://adata.attraction.se/Telia/buss14/09-Utskick_v15/images/erbj3.jpg" border=0></A></TD></TR>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top align=middle><A href="http://tr.anp.se/track?t=c&mid=250386&uid=124849854&&&http://track.adform.net/C/?bn=212313" target=_blank><IMG alt="Nu höjer vi hastigheten och sänker priset." src="http://adata.attraction.se/Telia/buss14/09-Utskick_v15/images/erbj4.jpg" border=0></A></TD></TR></TABLE><BR>
<DIV style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 10px; COLOR: #505050; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif">Vill du inte få fler erbjudanden från Telia till denna epostadress, <A style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal; FONT-SIZE: 10px; COLOR: #cf0566; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, Sans-Serif" href="http://www.anp.se/oa/250386/4342584B72474751437243465143" target=_blank>klicka här »</A></DIV></TD></TR></TABLE></BODY></HTML>
<img border=0 width=1 height=1 src="http://www.anp.se/Clicks.asp?sqid=250386&sid=124849854&pf_action=View&pf_Link=">

Wow - it is like a time machine to 1996. MSHTML did supposedly generate it.

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ThoughWorks Free Seminars in Stockholm

April 7th, 2009

ThoughtWorks will give two free seminars at Berns Tuesday April 21 2009.

The morning one is given by me and will be on the business value of agile and lean, and how it can be the competitive advantage in difficult times.

In the afternoon my colleague Zack Exley will give a behind-the-scenes look at the technological side of the Barack Obama campaign.

Both of the talks will be kicked off by our chairman Roy Singham who will give his view on why he believes Scandinavia has a great future in the software development world.

You are welcome to attend either one of these - or both of course.

For registration and more info please visit: http://connect.thoughtworks.com/stockholmEvent/

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Simple beats complicated

April 5th, 2009

Peter Krantz sent this clip from a Capoeira fight (rating: violent) which I see as a really good analogy for XP's YAGNI and the simplest thing that could possibly work.

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ThoughtWorks Hosts A Track and Speaks At Scandinavian Developer Conference

January 22nd, 2009

ishot-21.png

ThoughtWorks cohosting and speaking at the Emerging Technologies track at the Scandinavian Developer Conference. Ola will speak about JRuby and I will give a presentation with a title stolen from XP: 'The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work'.

It is a one day conference which I am really looking forward to - Kent Beck keynoting is reason enough to be there. See the full program here.

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ThoughtWorks Sweden Gets A Roommate

January 13th, 2009

ThoughtWorks Sweden will move in with our great friends at Agical at the end of this month. Our new address will be

ThoughtWorks Sweden Västerlånggatan 79 2tr
111 29 Stockholm
Sweden

Personally it will be the first time I have an office in Old Town - cool.

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Playing to win, culture style

January 12th, 2009

This Saturdays edition of Dagens Industri had a really interesting column by Jan Åman, former curator of Färgfabriken. He writes about how you can either move forward or secure your back, and how the world is run by people watching their backs and making sure that decisions can never be questioned.

It is very close my favorite XP slogan "playing to win" and what I talk about in my presentation on Agile Documentation. A good read, but unfortunately only in the paper edition.

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Quoted in Computer Sweden

December 17th, 2008

I am quoted in todays issue of Computer Sweden on BDD. It is a well written article even if I do not agree with Emil Gustafssons quote in the end where he states that BDD doesn't bring that much new things to the table. I think that people looking at BDD for the first time might perceive it as such, but I must say that there is a clear difference in both approach and outcome.

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Agile Sweden Christmas Party

December 9th, 2008

The Agile Sweden annual christmas party is on Thursday at the Agical office. The evening will kick off with a few lightning talks, of which I am doing one. My talk is titled "The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work" and will discuss how XP's value of simplicity has more or less been forgotten as agile has gone mainstream.

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Symptoms vs. Causes

December 8th, 2008

There latest storm in the teacup that is Swedish IT is caused by the national news agency TT decision to move from OpenOffice to Microsoft Office, mainly because 'I [head of development] do not want to sit here wondering how I will connect OpenOffice with a hundred eleven other systems'. I believe 'a hundred eleven' is a long form for 'a lot'.

This has in almost deterministic fashion caused people from both sides of the OSS-MS divide to wave their party flags. But no one asks the to me more obvious question - why do you connect your office suite with all those systems, and why is that a problem if you do not have Microsoft Office? Seems more like an architecture question if you ask me.

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Smidig Videos Are Up

December 2nd, 2008

The videos from Smidig 2008 are up. This is mine (in Swedish):

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Icebears Out, Polar Bears In

November 30th, 2008

Aslak reminded me that there is no such thing as an icebear. Tag line changed.

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Words don’t come easy: MoSCoW and BDD

November 26th, 2008

I had a interesting conversation with Kevlin Henney at Øredev regarding the word 'should' and its usage in Behaviour Driven Development. Kevlin does not like 'should' as he feels it is too vague in many circumstances. And I have to agree with Kevlin.

Sometime you are speccing something like "the title of the index page should be 'blabbr.com - the worlds largest social network'", which might be something that we will change in the future. 'Should' is a good choice of words here.

Another time the spec says 'when the nuclear reactor overheats it should shut down.'. 'Should' is not a good choice of word here. I'd much rather say that the nuclear reactor must shutdown, as to really say that we have no other option.

So, let's use both. Use 'should' when describing a something might change, and 'must' when describing something carved in rock.

This might also help using the specs as an executable requirement. At the moment all specs are valued the same, every fail breaks the build. Perhaps there is a value in saying that certain specs are really important and should never fail. We could have different colors for different types of failure.

Perhaps there is a use for the rest of MoSCoW?

Thoughts?

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Going to Øredev

November 15th, 2008

My Friday morning inbox contained an email from Niclas Nilsson asking me to replace him doing interviews for InfoQ at Øredev. It took some planning calls to my wife and booking of babysitting, but now I am good to go.

I will be interviewing these six gentlemen:

  • Jon Bostrom
  • Walter Bright
  • James Bach
  • Roger Sullivan
  • Luke Hohmann
  • BJ Hargrave

Let me know if you have any question you would like me to ask.

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Going to JAOO

September 8th, 2008

I will be at JAOO this year, telling everyone who is interested all about ThoughtWorks Sweden. Last time I went to JAOO was 2001, so I am really looking forward to it.

I will probably spend quite some time in the ThoughtWorks booth, so come by and say hi. Or beat me in the IT-run which I have signed up for.

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Speaking at Smidig 2008

September 8th, 2008

I am happy to say that I will give one of the lightning talks at Smidig 2008. My presentation is about optimizing the whole product chain, from concept to cash, and stop focusing on projects as they fragment the organization and cause local optimization.

Last years conference was great and inspired us here in Stockholm to do our own version in the form of Agila Sverige. I am really looking forward to going back to Oslo.

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Presentation About Test Driven Development

September 2nd, 2008

I will do a presentation on 'Successfully Using Test Driven Development' at .NetAkademin Tuesday September 16th. This talk will cover stuff like BDD, outside-in but also how the test-driven approach is used on the project as a whole.

To match my .Net experience, we will touch on frameworks and tools for .Net, but focus on the ideas and philosophies behind them, making it a very platform independent presentation.

The event is first and foremost for clients and members of .NetAkademin, but any seat not taken by them is available to the public.

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Oops

August 28th, 2008

No more tweet summaries here. Thanks Ben.

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ThoughtWorks Sweden Is Open For Business

August 25th, 2008

ThoughtWorks Sweden has come a long way since I last posted anything about it. We have ourselves a nice office downtown, with proper phone numbers and pretty business cards.

This means that we are available for consulting gigs, primarily in Stockholm, but we can serve basically all of Scandinavia. With ThoughtWorks global organization behind us, we offer software delivery in Java, Ruby and .Net as well as agile coaching and consulting. We are also keen to show off our products Mingle, Cruise and Twist.

Call us, email us, come by the office for a coffee or lunch. We look forward to hearing from you.

ThoughtWorks
Mäster Samuelsgatan 60, 8 tr.
111 21 Stockholm

Office: +46 8 5500 2100
Skype me: mahnve
email me: mahnve at thoughtworks dot com

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Separating the View And the API

August 14th, 2008

Assaf writes about using Hahlo and Fluid, and I find this paragraph especially interesting:

A great Web app uses persistent, readable URLs for every interesting resource. Twitter does that, so it’s pretty easy to share links to people, statuses and other points of interest. Hahlo hides the entire user interface behind a single URL, but it works extremely well because Hahlo is just a front end, Twitter is the system of record. If I need to link, I wouldn’t be using Hahlo links anyway (although link discovery is missing in the current version).

Perhaps this is a good way to both have the cake and eat it? Have a restful, share nothing API, which is accessed by a separate GUI app built in say Seaside that can use state as much as it wants.

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All Your Technology Are Belong To You

July 3rd, 2008

Jonathan Schwartz writes about finance as a technology business

I remember a dinner I had a while back with the CEO of a global financial services firm. As one of his first acts as CEO, he'd cancelled an enormous outsourcing contract, and I'd asked him why - his response has stuck with me. 'Banking is a technology business. Pure and simple. I can't win if I don't have my own team.'

Independent of his views on outsourcing, I've heard the same point made by many (but not all) financial services executives - banking (like big swaths of telecommunications, media and retailing) has become a technology business, where every ounce of performance and differentiation matters. Even, and especially, in the midst of market turmoil.

Which is why you should use consultants that can help you improve your game, not play the game for you.

(Via Jonathan Schwartz's Weblog.)

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