The Rule of Three It occurred to me some time ago that the creation of business software, once we get past the design and planning stage, boils down to three basic activities. 1 – We read and write data from and to a storage device. 2 – We manipulate the variables that contain … …
Continue readingInternational i-Power Conference 2015
IBM i revival – A well attended event and an upbeat atmosphere The International i-Power Conference, hosted by i-UG (the UK IBM i User Group), is the annual gathering of IBM i enthusiasts from across the UK. As a proud i-UG member LANSA was one of 21 sponsors at this year’s conference. This event was … …
Continue readingWorkflow Solutions: Key Considerations for Transforming Inefficient Business Processes
Workflow applications enable users to actively participate and manage business processes across any or all areas of an enterprise. For example, a manager’s daily role may involve hiring decisions, PO approvals or expense reviews. Each approval may be linked to a myriad of systems within the enterprise. A workflow application would provide the manager with … …
Continue readingUser Interface Design – Less is so much more
“How old were you when you got your first phone, daddy?”, asked my 8 year old daughter. She looked shocked when I told her I was 28 and it was 1997. She was just as surprised when I told her that I sent my first email when I was 26 and used a browser for the … …
Continue readingMind the Gap: Addressing Ambiguity in Requirements
The lesson of the Tower of Babel, possibly the first post-project review in historical records, is that communication failure within the team will cause project failure. In today’s projects, often staffed by cross-functional teams spread across the globe, the communication challenge persists. Complexity in problem definition, solution and design tool architecture, organizational structures and market … …
Continue readingVersion Control – How did we ever survive without it?
That sinking feeling It seems that nearly everyone in the IT industry has a story about the day they deleted, or at least nearly deleted, the most important thing in the world. For me, it was the time I arrived at the insurance company I worked for intent on clearing my working file, only to … …
Continue readingThe Thing About Testing – Part II
In my previous blog post entitled The Thing About Testing, I detailed my experiences as a Professional Services Consultant and the many different scenarios of trying to implement business application solutions. Today, I’d like to share three stories of how developers can determine what levels of testing is needed to ascertain that their “work” or … …
Continue readingThe Thing about Testing
My experiences in Professional Services Consulting have exposed me to many different scenarios and perspectives of trying to implement business application solutions, both large and small scale. As the end user, the developer, the systems architect or the project manager the dilemma I am often faced with understanding is “when is something truly ready?” When … …
Continue readingAre you SaaS ready?
SaaS (Software as a Service) is flourishing. More and more companies are turning to SaaS and other on-demand solutions to respond to business needs faster and more cheaply. SaaS is a software delivery model in which software and associated data are centrally hosted on the Cloud and accessed through a web browser. Customers pay only … …
Continue readingThe Great RPG Programming Survival Guide . . .
Guest Blogger: Pete Helgren, Programmer/Team Lead at BSF International “Knowledge is good” was the motto of the infamous Faber College in the movie Animal House and to us midrange folks, it’s a motto we can take to heart. If you’ve been around the midrange community since the late 1990s then you have either faced, participated … …
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