Monday - Continuous Delivery Gone Bad

At the invitation of my erstwhile and erudite colleague and associate Mr. Laver, I went to a presentation by Gojko Adzic at Skills Matter regarding his experiences and recommendations for continuous delivery, one of the corner stones of agile development.

In quite an interesting, if earnest and intense, presentation, Gojko related some interesting anecdotes, and a few novel ideas.

Notable was that to do justice to continuous delivery, it has to be done with multiple versions, allowing mistakes to be made and features to be added without interrupting the work flow of the customers using the applications. There were a few intakes of breath from the audience, and he didn't disguise the difficulties of this strategy, particularly regarding data versions.

Another was the idea of using fast prototyping techniques, often without any coding whatsoever, to be able to sort out business issues, and that feedback and measuring are also important elements, especially if the project is a success.

All in all, it was quite a good presentation, if a little slow in places, and it was good to see how Matt was faring after starting his new job.