You hear them all the time in software development shops, these common phrases that always get a laugh in my presentations because people are so familiar with them. And while we hear them and maybe even say them ourselves, we seldom take a closer look at the underlying issues with our software development principles and practices that cause us to hear and say them so often. Let’s take a look at some of the more common phrases and see what issues they often reveal and what Agile practices might help alleviate them.

“It Works on My Box.”

This is by far my favorite because I hear it (and I admit that I say it) quite a bit. It is most often uttered by a developer who is told some feature they authored is not working on the server or another developer’s machine. It is so common that there are t-shirts and even a song. Very funny but it can be indicative of several issues:

• Developer Apathy – Often the phrase is accompanied with a shrug as the developer walks away. Not a very good team effort to drop the ball like that and leave someone else to pick it up and try to figure out what is wrong.
• A Poor Definition of Done – If your process allows developers to simply get something built and tested on their personal machine, then you will hear this phrase more than you would like.
• Siloed Development and Late Integration – Often teams split up tasks and go away for long periods of time to write code in a vacuum, coming together late in the process to start seeing if what they have written separately will work when integrated together. Which it rarely does right off the bat.

So what Agile principles and practices can help prevent you from hearing this phrase over and over?

• Continuous Integration - Since CI builds (and tests hopefully) software that is checked in on a separate environment, these types of issues are caught earlier. If you implement more robust stop gap measures such as TFS 2010’s new gated check in feature, you can proactively prevent bugs of this type from even getting into the source on the server. I personally think this is one of the low hanging fruits of Agile (more specifically XP) since you have to build, integrate, and deploy the solution sometime anyway, this just makes you do it sooner and more often. There are many good solutions out there besides TFS such as Team City and Cruise.
• Clear Definition of Done – Even though there is an implicit definition of done most developers have in their heads, you should sit down with your team and clarify what everyone expects to have been completed when someone claims a certain coding task is “done”. I suggest writing in down on a big sheet of paper and posting on the wall in the team room. So when someone says “Oh yeah, that’s done.” you can point to it and ask “Really?”. This can also help remove another common developer phrase from your teams vocabulary: “Done done.”

Stay tuned for our next entry: “Don’t Read the Architecture Documentation, It is Not Up To Date Anymore.”

If you don’t want to click on each download link for the 12 files for each of the VSTS 2008 and VS 2010 Beta 2 VPC image files you can use the free download manager and these two text files (download them from here) that have all the URLs and you can import them to make it a bit easier.

Microsoft has released a series of virtual images with Visual Studio 2008 SP 1 and 2010 Beta 2 for educational purposes. These images contain all you need to get started and are great for learning and demos (which is what I use them for). The VSTS 2008 versions expire in Jan 2011 so you have a whole year of Visual Studio goodness. The Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 expires much sooner (April 2010) since it is beta software. There are versions for Virtual PC and Hyper V with ones that have just TFS and ones that have TFS and all of the Visual Studio components.

Here are the links for the 2008 images:

VSTS “all-up” Virtual PC/Virtual Server image (7.5 GB download, expands to 17.5 GB)
TFS “only” Virtual PC/Virtual Server image (3.31 GB download, expands to 8 GB)
VSTS “all-up” Hyper-V image (7.5 GB download, expands to 17.5 GB)
TFS “only” Hyper-V image (3.31 GB download, expands to 8 GB)

And here are the 2010 Beta 2 images:

Virtual PC 2007 SP1/Virtual Server 2005 SP1 virtual machine (7.2 GB download, expands to 21.5 GB)
Windows Virtual PC virtual machine (7.2 GB download, expands to 21.5 GB) 
Hyper-V/Hyper-V R2 virtual machine  (7.2 GB download, expands to 21.5 GB)

For more information about the release of these images check out Brian Randell’s blog post.

I’ve been lucky enough to have been invited to speak at the Lap Around PDC event here in Nashville on Jan. 20, 2010. Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, will be delivering the keynote. I will be doing a 70 minute session on Visual Studio 2010. The event is free but seating is limited so click here to register.

Here is some more info about the event:

Did you miss the Professional Developers Conference in November?  If so, join us as we bring the “highlights” from the PDC09 conference to you!  At this special FREE event we will cover the latest Microsoft technologies and exciting announcements from PDC09 and deliver over 16 sessions presented by Microsoft, Partners, MVPs and Community Leaders.  The keynote will be delivered by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and will cover Microsoft’s three screens and the cloud strategy.

Microsoft is releasing more than 25 products and frameworks over the next six months, more than at any other time. Our goal is to get you up to speed on what is coming, and how it can help you do more with what you have. The sessions will cover multiple technologies such as Windows Azure, Visual Studio 2010, .NET 4, Silverlight 4, SharePoint 2010, SQL Server 2008 R2, Windows® 7, and Windows Server® 2008 R2.

During the event, we encourage you to network with your peers and chat one-on-one with the speakers at the “Ask the Experts” area to get all of your questions answered. You can also visit the Customer Showcase area to see how customers are using the latest technologies in real world applications, and the amazing results they are seeing. We will also showcase the latest Windows powered gadgets and mobile devices in the Customer Showcase area.

If seeing isn't enough, we will also have a fully staffed Hands-On-Lab area packed with PC's, labs you can practice with, and expert staff to help you learn the new tools.

We will be hosting the event at Vanderbilt University Student Life Center in Nashville, TN.

For your convenience, please find specific details below on complimentary event parking and shuttle services, which will be emailed to you as well.

Breakfast and lunch will be provided.

Every attendee will receive a Visual Studio 2010 Beta2 DVD, a t-shirt and an event bag filled with a collection of product information, case studies and other great resources. We will also be raffling off some great prizes at the end of the day.

Come spend the day with us and learn about the future of developer technology!

We look forward to your attendance!

Conchango has released the second beta of their Team Foundation Server process template for Scrum. This version works with the current beta 2 release of TFS 2010. Click here to download.