Something Smells

Writing user stories should be easy. The reality is that most users don't know how to properly write a user story. Suppose a client asks you to write a wire transfer subroutine for systems at two different banks. (below I will highlight proper Stories in green and improper stories in red) The client says...Write a wire transfer subroutine for systems at two different banks. While a need is expressed, I would submit that this is not a User Story. What's been stated here could be the beginning of a vision statement, perhaps for the next release or the next Iteration. Let's try to distill this a bit. So the client reconsiders and says.....System A should use a web-service exposed by System B to electronically wire funds. A common pitfall in writing User Stories......getting too technical. The statement above assumes that web-services will be used and it may be perfectly logical to assume that they will be used, but let's examine what a User Story is really intended for. Fi...

I've changed the name of my blog!!!! Not that this makes much difference to my audience. This blog will, from this day forward, be known as "Something Smells". While my critics may consider the cause for this change to be self evident (Garreth, Rob?), I made this change for wholly different, and much shallower, reasons. First of all I no longer fancied the old name (yes, I just used the word fancied). Second, after long deliberation in the shower at the American Airlines Admiral's Club, I decided to really re-enforce the code smell concept. Oh and I changed the masthead....I think the new title goes better with the masthead. Why more on code smell? Well, I won't be writing more about code smell, but I do think that my general technique for coming up with interesting topics (don't say a word) is somewhat similar to how we find code smell. Also, I think the art of hunting for code smell is a bit misunderstood. For better or worse, we all do it (hunt for code sme...