Why Choose Custom Software?
I initially wrote this content for the Oasis Digital web site; it was posted there for a while, then came down during a recent refresh: we are in the process of improving the Oasis Digital site,...
View ArticleWe’re hiring a NON-developer
Over at Oasis Digital, we are in the (job) market for our first non-developer, non-project-manager, non-service-delivery-focussed full-time team member. The job post is on the Oasis Digital site; I...
View ArticleData Center (Cloud) Cost Efficiency
A few months ago I mentioned James Hamilton’s comments on the micro-server trend. Today I came across a talk he gave at MIX10 in which he presented excellent real-world large-scale data, with...
View ArticleWhen Will It Ship? Estimates and Promises
I’m trying something new with this post: a short video presentation of approximately the same content. This is a Vimeo video, embedded as Flash. You can go over to Vimeo to watch it with HTML5-video...
View ArticleTake a Strategic Vacation
This is yet another story that I’ve told dozens of time to individual and groups, and now finally written down. Here is a short video talk: As usual, the vimeo page offers it for HTML5, non-Flash...
View ArticleSaaS: The Business Model – Video
On Feb. 27 at St. Louis Innovation Camp 2010, I gave a talk on the SaaS business model. I posted the slides, handout, audio, and transcript soon thereafter. Here, finally, is a video of the...
View ArticleHelping Our Customers Hire
For today, a “day job” topic: Oasis Digital (my firm) is a custom software development shop. It is not a staffing or recruiting firm; there are many good firms in those businesses, and I have no desire...
View ArticleSometimes, Establishing Expertise Doesn’t Pay Off
Recently I analyzed the relative payoff from different types of work I’ve done in my career to date. Some of the work has paid off reasonably well. But one particular bit of it stands out as a...
View ArticleI Admire the Ruby Community
Over the last year or so, I’ve spent perhaps 50 hours rethinking what kind of business Oasis Digital should be. I’ve studied business models. I’ve made spreadsheets. I’ve looked around that numerous...
View ArticleApple is Building a Bigger Footprint
I’ve seen a lot of people writing (whining?) about being unimpressed by some of the new Apple products/features announced at their event this week. These folks are missing Apple’s strategy. Several of...
View ArticleIn the Arena
Almost every day at some point I wander over to Hacker News, which has some great discussion, along with some less great discussion, among people pursuing or aspiring to pursue a software startup or...
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Hire a RAIT: Redundant Array of Independent Teams
Life is Risk Whenever you hire out work, either to a person, to a team, or to a company, there are risks. These risks can easily prevent the work from being completed, and even more easily prevent it...
View ArticleCrafting a Summer Intern Program
Inspired by Fog Creek’s summer intern program, for the last few years we’ve (occasionally) thought about a summer intern program at Oasis Digital. We’ll going to try it out this summer, with a single...
View ArticleOasis Digital 2012 Summer Internships – Mobile, Tablet, Web
Application Deadline: May 15, 2012. Applications are now closed. It’s almost time for our Summer 2012 internship program. You might want to look back to our 2011 program, or our inspiration, the Fog...
View ArticleOur Interns Built a Mobile Web App, Here is Their Story
This summer, we hired three interns to build a mobile web application and learn a bunch in the process. Here is their story, in video form: If you don’t have Flash installed (and thus don’t see the...
View ArticleBits are Free, People are Valuable
A few days ago, I caught myself thinking about whether to save some images and video; whether the likely future value of those megabytes would be greater or lesser than the cost of storage. This is a...
View ArticleRecord Development Meetings with Hangouts On Air
At Oasis Digital, our project teams coordinate in numerous ways, sometimes by meeting “live”. At these meetings we discuss, we plan, we model, we code, we review. For teams/projects where everyone is...
View ArticleMartin Fowler defines Software Architecture
Yesterday I saw the following video of a brief talk by Martin Fowler, in which he defines software architecture. I have grumbled about that term myself, in that firstly it is often ill-defined, and...
View ArticleApply Enough Force
I have written and spoken many times about the importance of getting started. This is a key idea in agile software development (or for that matter, to many other kinds of work). If you refuse to start...
View ArticleFilling up your issue tracker – at scale
Sometimes when working on a project at work, we find out about a pile of features or changes needed. This can happen at the beginning of a project, at the start of the major initiative, after deploying...
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