Brake-by-wire axed in the Benz

AutoWeek | Mercedes cancels by-wire brake system; decision a blow to technology’s future
Many cars currently use a drive-by-wire system for the accelerator, and if it fails it is not necessarily a safety critical issue (you just don’t go anywhere - safe, unless you are on train tracks with a loco coming). But if your […]

Software Configuration Management Seminar

For my seminar course on Software Design, I did a talk on Software Configuration Management. Here are my slides and reference docs.
I discussed SCM from the management persepective for the most part, but included some theoretical ideas when discussing the various tools to highlight benefits or drawbacks of them.
I did the presentation using Keynote […]

LaTeX source for MIS

I have had several requests for the LaTeX source for my Team’s MIS, for SFWR 4G06.
I have made the source available. For PDF versions of the MIS, and some of the other documents see here. I’ll someday get around to putting everything up, but usually I need a reminder (kick in the a$$), […]

CUSEC 2005 - Day 1

Day 1 of CUSEC 2005 is complete. The opening keynote, by J.B. Rainsberger, started the conference off with a good talk about group work and some of the issues that arise.
Chris Ness gave a clear explanation of Subversion in his half hour tutorial.
It was great to see many peers from the other Universities […]

Apple’s path to world domination

Apple’s stock price has double in the past 3 years, up to around the $40 mark. The surge began with the release of OS X, and has only improved with revolutionary product introductions (such as the G5 PowerMac, G4 then G5 iMac, the iPod, iTMS, list goes on and on…). I’ve been predicting […]

Protose goes live

It is official, the new home of software engineers has gone live at Protose.org. Look to it for your latest news on the industry and as a place to discuss issues with other software engineers. Visit every day, be informed, enlightened, and entertained.

I was so close to being out

After completing my undergraduate degree in Software Engineering in April, I thought I was out of school… at least for a year or two. As usual, life does not play out as planned. I had my graduate student orientation session today, my first class is Thursday. Oh so close. Postponing my […]

Software Business Models

For a long time, I have said that the software business model of boxed merchandise is faulty based on the nature of software. Many companies without a monopoly in its market have struggled or disappeared because they continued to use this model. The monopolist has enough market control to maintain sustainable profits as […]

RFC: Software Engineering Community

Building on the SEUG discussion mailing list, is the establishment of an organization and website for Canadian Software Engineers. This organization, named Protose, (Proto: Greek for “First”, with an SE at the end) will be the SEs link to news, events, and individuals in our emerging engineering disipline.
John Kopanas has begun the requirement gathering […]

Morons and Assholes, why we need a new kind of spec

Mark Pilgram has an interesting discussion on the different types of developers, and how they deal with software specifications. Read “Why specs matter“. According to Mark, there are 3 types of developers, 2 real: Morons and Assholes, and 1 imaginary: Angels. (The 2 real are to the right of the imaginary axis, […]

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