I have had some real problems to get going with the Sprint Planner Helper Project after the trip to Ethiopia. I am not sure why – but it made me think about the project, the scope and purpose. First and foremost – I am not working, i am on parental leave. That means this is my spare time project and I promised myself that I would end it if I didn’t feel up to it for some reason. Since I have found it hard to restart I conclude that I have reached that point. Secondly – the main reason and purpose of the project was to learn, not to produce a wonder-application (although that would have been nice :)). I think that I have learned quite a lot during this project and that I am at a junction right now. You cannot pursue at depth in all directions. OK –...

I have some real trouble get going with my normal flow after Ethiopia. This week I will play and do the presentations at a concert with Solna Brass. And there has been a lot of stuff with the Salvation Army and the band. I’ll try to get to it in the next week. By the way, the Vasa Band got a good review of the CD Priority. In Brass Band World. Here is a picture of it: The review was next to the review of A Breathless Alleluia of Black Dyke Band… Something to be compered to!

The last week has been really strange and “busy” since we are still recovering from some illness from Africa. Mostly Elin but it has taken its toll on Abbe and myself also. I haven’t got time to update the blog in a long while. But here are some pictures from our trip. A typical outing with our “followers”. It was like this almost everytime we went out. <img src=”http://lh5.ggpht.com/_TI0jeIedRFk/Sf6hivv0UcI/AAAAAAAAAEw/ShS6Hsvm9QA/DSC_0536_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800” style=”border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px” data-border=”0” data-followers??=”followers??” width=”340” height=”232” alt=”A typical outing with our “ /> Elin and Abbe enjoying the African countryside in Wondo Genet. A building site in Addis Abeba**. ** The beatiful Wenchi crater - we walked down to the water… and this is how we went back up again. Me! On a horse! With Abbe on my back! Here we are on our way home to a friend, in downtown Addis. It sure was...

We’re back home again from Ethiopia. The trip really was something extra. As I heard someone say: “Africa is more of everything - the worst as well as the best” - this trip has really taken it’s toll. We have done some amazing experiences but also had some really hard times. One thing was that it was really hard to keep track of what Albert put into his mouth. There are so many things that you don’t even want to touch that he gladly put into his mouth. And he has also be sick during most of the trip, nothing too bad but still. We have been on two great tours, one to the south (Wondo Genet) and one to the east (Ambo) of Addis Abbeba. The rest of the time was spent in Addis. I will upload some (many?) photos as I get the time. Right now we’re taking...

I am going to Ethiopia for two weeks and the project comes to a natural (and needed) halt during that period. I had hoped that I would have got further than this but I must stay content with what I’ve got. The visit to Ethopia will be something very different and exciting. Especially with Albert who right now is 14 months and have just started to walk… Get back to you on the trip at www.marcusoft.net

Found these two great presentations surronding ASP.NET MVC. File|New -> Company: Creating NerdDinner.com with Microsoft ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC) - really funny too… Microsoft ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC): Ninja on Fire Black Belt Tips - a bit slow presentation but some real nuggest are to be found I haven’t seen them straight through yet - but they promise a great deal.

I have come to realize that I am not working… Not very flattering that I has taken me about 2,5 months to come to that conclusion but here I am. So I will probably slow down the pace for this project. I have not done loads so far but I felt a bit pressured to “produce” and that not the kind of feeling I would like to have on my parental leave. So a bit slow – and still only when it’s fun! OK – the thing today is to find aggregates and create repositories for the Sprint domain object. When it’s comes to aggregates I still find them quite hard to grasp. The mainstream definition seems to be “things that must exists together” and the most common example is the Order-OrderLine relationship. But for my Sprint I have a list of SprintItems each with a list of ActionItems. And...

Today I did something that I never dared before - I posted a comment on an article that I read in ComputerSweden</a>. Nothing scary there - but the article was written by one of the IT-heros of Sweden, Ivar Jacobsson. He invented RUP and has been a busy debater and writer. His column was about Scrum and how it’s “coming apart” (my translation). You can read it here (in Swedish). Here are my comment and Ivar’s promptly answer. The last row was something extra: “Marcus, you’re welcome to write to me directly” :) I can’t miss out on that opportunity, can I.

Today I will continue working on the model, surrounding Sprints, and of course drive it forward with tests. I came to realize today that I am now converted. I am now a TDD guy. I will do tests even if it’s not required of me. And the reason is security and speed. I have gone from coding along with no worries – the tester will find (any) bugs for me… Then I heard of unit-testing and started to write some – just for fun in the start (yeah – pretty sick). After a while I didn’t dare to check in any code that I couldn’t prove with some test – but a wrote the code first. And after a while of doing that, I was so feed up with running behind with the tests that thought I’ll give true TDD a chance. What I pretty soon came to realize is...

Here is a clip of a group of girls, the Cactus Cuties, that sings the American National Anthem in the most wonderful way. They are just spot on in their parts – and the balance is just amazing. I don’t care that is sugar-sweet and patriotic, music-making like this always makes me happy.