Dexhian

How a company use #twitter to monitor issues people experience with their product in order to enhance it

2009-03-20T20:01:00.011+01:00

This morning, like every morning, I've started my day reading the news. Not the newspaper, but the news from the blogs I follow. Actually, I first read my emails and eventually reply to some of them, and then I read the blog posts that seems to me interesting. I'm following roughly 100 blogs. I just browse the subjects of the tens of posts received during one day, and open only those that seem to me interesting. Maybe 4 or 5, not more.

Twitter is running as well. That's not the same usage at all. It's just there, running in the background all the time, and doing little sounds and displaying a message from time to time on my screen for few seconds. I do not pay attention to most of the tweets received. But some times, I read one, and some time also I reply or re-tweet one. Some tweets are sent directly to me (they contain "@thibs" in it) and then I pay them the same attention as if it was an email or an instant message like on skype or jabber.

This morning, as I was reading a blog post on the new Nimbuzz application for the iphone, I've decided to give it a try and install this voice-over-IP client on my iphone. I feel it very interesting, and as I know that a lot of my friends following me on twitter have an iphone, I decided to tweet what I was actually doing:

thibs
giving a try to #Nimbuzz VoIP client on #iphone

Twitter is like a loudspeaker. With short messages. Everybody can actually listen to your tweets if he decides to. Some persons decide to follow you and receive all of your tweets, usually because they know you in a way, even only from your blog for instance. And some persons use twitter to search tweets talking about a particular subject. Like "iphone", or "Nimbuzz". Because they want to know opinions, thoughts, rants, experiences, "what it is said about".

That's what I did when I wrote "#iphone" and "#nimbuzz" in my tweet: I've put tags. I should also have written "#voip" actually. I've given a sens to my tweet by tagging it "#iphone" and "#nimbuzz": I'm talking about the iphone and Nimbuzz. This way, one can search people experiencing Nimbuzz on iphone by using twitter search service and find this message, with a lot of other messages.

So, yes, interesting ideas can be collected from this messages broadcasting service that is twitter. Of course, a lot of people use twitter to say "I'm taking my breakfast ". That's noise. Well, actually, if this noise is coming from someone you are following, it is not noise. You are following him because you know him. And because you are likely to feel interesting that he "is currently taking a good breakfast". If this noise is coming from a search mechanism on twitter with "breakfast" as the search query, then it is not noise either! It's a search result. So, who's saying there's lot of noise -- uninteresting messages on twitter? Let people say they are currently taking an amazing breakfast, if they like to.

This morning I said, I've given a try to Nimbuzz. Nice application. Anyway. I've sign up a new account, add my skype account to it, ICQ and jabber accounts as well, etc. And, I've tried to add my home phone VoIP line to it as well (I've no regular phone line at home because France Telecom sucks. So, my ADSL box is hosted by my neighbour. Wifi does the rest). It should have worked. I don't know why, but it didn't.

Like everybody, I'm part of a community (several actually!) composed of persons from my family, friends, relationships, colleagues, people, whom I share similar experiences and interests with. If I'm feeling interesting to give a try to this application, hopefully, someone from this community will feel it as well. The same way, I can count on this community to have people that have the same Internet provider than me.

So, being experiencing a problem with this application with my VoIP provider, I've decided to tweet this following message in order to receive maybe some help or some similar testimony from people of my twitter community:

thibs
can't manage to make #nimbuzz work with Free (french ISP - freephonie.net) #VoIP

The tags are saying: "I'm saying something interesting about nimbuzz and voip". Please understand : it is not interesting because I put tags on this message, it is interesting because people who would search for people talking about nimbuzz and voip would feel this message interesting.

I've received no answer so far from any of my followers on Twitter.

But I've received this, few hours after my tweet:

nimbuzz
@thibs Thanks, got your message, will respond today #Nimbuzz #VoIP

Yes, this company, Nimbuzz, is actually listening to people messages about Nimbuzz, and use twitter as a channel to detect issues with their product, in order to enhance it.

Note: I've not sent anything to them saying I'm experiencing problems with their product. They've just found it.

Thanks guys to have caught and answered my tweet. Now, I'm waiting your next message @thibs

My next tweet will be:

thibs
blogging about how @nimbuzz guys use #twitter to monitor issues people experience with their product - http://dexhian.net/blog

Buy Software Development: Agile vs Traditional

2008-11-18T13:20:00.003+01:00

Software development is intellectual services.

Unless you only need little hands to code straight forward what you have precisely (very precisely) specified, you need at some point some intelligence, some expertise, and you'll choose a contractor not only because he is cheaper, but also because you will benefit from its expertise.

Say you are a buyer of a big company, and you have in mind a set of features. Maybe you have a specifications document (given by your technical team). Maybe you also have a rough idea of how it can be implemented, technically speaking.

Say that your goal is to provide your company with the best solution at the best price.

Now, let's compare two very different approaches:

1. Buy traditionally made software

In this approach, you have to specify precisely what you want. Then, you can easily ask several companies the price and the delay for implementing your software. And you can easily negotiate prices because all proposals will contain nearly the same commitment. And if you specify an architecture, you'll have similar solutions proposed.

That's the more comfortable position for you, the buyer. You buy intellectual services (software development) like you buy a product.

Then, the realization will start. And the contractor, if he is professional, will have to deliver you with the minimum software that fits with your specifications and its commitment. The same way you negotiated the price to minimize your expense, he will deliver the bear minimum he has to in order to maximize his revenue.

More than that, if for some reasons, your needs turn out to be a bit different than what you expected first (because it appears that you are not the expert in the field, or/and because your contractor has hidden some lack of your specifications, etc.) you'll have to ask your contractor for a amendment to the contract.
And because your contractor made a price very low on the first package in order to gain the contract and because he is a professional that needs to maximize its profit (like you), you will have to pay a lot for this amendment (and all upcoming ones). Especially if (it happens in most cases) you are stuck to this subcontractor -- because he developed too many things now to replace him with another company.

Obviously, it always happens. Because it is so hard to precisely define what you need. Even, often, what you need is different of what you first wanted (and sometimes also different from what you specified).

Meaning that if you wish to buy software this way, you'll have to engage technical experts first, to precisely define what you need, and then charge a standard IT company (little hands) to execute the exact plan at the lower price. And then, the question is still asked: how to buy expertise?

In the traditional way, the contractor is not exactly playing with you because its goal is not aligned on yours.

2. Buy agile made software

You have needs. And maybe rough ideas on what and how it can be realized. But you know you are not the expert, and you are confident your contractor will come up with a solution you would never have thought about, way better than what you expected first.

Meaning, you'll choose your contractor for its expertise, not for its ability to execute word by word a plan you have written.

A contractor comfortable with agile development methods will answer your RFI or RFP with:

an architecture and technologies that fit well with your needs;
an estimate of the work and the global cost of the project, without committing on it yet;
development plan split into several iterations of the same size of 2 to 4 weeks (called sprints in Scrum method), with maybe a first special iteration to study deeper your needs, and build up a mock up to validate the solution. Each iteration will end with a delivery you'll be able to use. And this delivery will be tested as it was a final product;
the price for each iteration planned on the project and the price for extra iterations;
the opportunity to stop the contract after each iteration and will offer you to pay each iteration one by one, once completed and accepted by you (the acceptance of the previous iteration being mandatory before starting a new one)

Here's how Scrum method used in my company looks like (features are broken down into a backlog who are managed with Jira):

Each week, you'll have a report on the estimated remaining time to achieve the product that fits your needs, the estimation of the implementation of each feature, and you'll be able to give feedbacks, change priorities of features to implement.
Each sprint, you'll be able to change the features to implement... that is to say to figure out that your needs are slightly different, and change the route of the project.

In one word: you are at the helm. You are part of the team. You are able to see with your eyes if the guys are really working hard or not. You can precisely follow the development and decide the direction to take. You can stop when you want or decide to continue. You will trust and be trusted in return.

In this way of contracting software development, the contractor is playing with you. He will show you everything he sees, and let you take the decisions.

Now, because you are the buyer, you are not very comfortable here, because you simply cannot negotiate the same way you would have done for a traditionally made software: if you lower the price, you will only get less iterations.

The only thing you can negotiate here is the price of each working days depending on the experience, the specialization and the reputation of your contractor.

Meaning that you have to:

make the contractor talk and write about the solution he proposes in term of architecture and technologies, project organization and development process, so that you'll be able to get a good idea on his experience and skills
interview people who have worked previously with the company (and preferably people who had same needs than you, people who are happy with the job they made and people who are less happy, and understand why)

3. Software services: expertise or simple outsourcing?

Depending on what you want to buy, expertise or little hands, choose how you buy, and to which company.

If you have experts at home (do you really have experts at home in all required fields?) maybe you can first spend a couple of weeks/months/years (depending on the project size) to produce extremely detailed specifications and buy man power (little hands) to standard IT companies, and build a project management/QA team to follow the outsourced team.

In all other cases, you may have to consider the "agile way" and benefit from an expert company which has built its reputation on its technical skills, its creativity, its ability to deliver in an agile manner.

What are you able to do for an iPhone?

2008-11-17T17:26:00.002+01:00

You know it: I've one of the first generation of iPhones in my pocket, a colleague of mine at Joost brought me back from the US. Of course, it has been unlocked so that I'm able to use it without giving 50€ to Orange each month during 2 years (+ several hundreds of euros to buy the device), that is to say without giving an arm for it!

Coucou to friends who are still working on Joost!

s/skype/Skype/

2008-10-30T21:41:00.001+01:00

I just discovered that my skype client (2.7.0.330 on Mac OS X) accepts Sed replacement commands ! And surprisingly enough, it doesn't work on Windows or Linux Skype clients (at least versions used by developers of my team). But on windows, the Ctrl-Z works, and allow you to re-edit your last post (and doesn't work on Mac...).

So, to sum up:

- Mac users are considered by Skype as Computer Geeks or Software Developers, and have to use the s/.../.../ syntax in order to edit their last post

- Windows users are considered by Skype as... windows users ;) and have to use the well known Ctrl-Z command to edit their last post using their mouse

- Linux users are considered by Skype as perfect people that don't need to edit their posts ;)

Don't vote

2008-10-30T19:25:00.000+01:00

Today, my day started with this:

While watching the two first minutes, I was so excited by this idea: what kind of people would possibly understand from these two minutes that these actors are telling them to not vote?

Would it be possible that one can understand "don't vote", while others understand "vote"?

Would it be possible that this video (the 2 first minutes) encourage people who actually understand the sarcasm to vote while it discourage others?

Don't vote

Well, the rest the video is more explicit and more conventional... and of course is emphasized by the first 2 minutes.

A brilliant video made by brilliant people, definitely.

Happy US iPhone freed living in France

2008-02-10T10:06:00.001+01:00

So, yes, I use my iPhone (1.1.2 Out_of_The_Box) with french operator Bouygtel, and VoIP with Free and FON wifi spots :)

Many thanks to Geir and Friday's hero: Geohot (I used this directly on 1.1.2 firmware)

Create your application for iPhone/Facebook/Android

2007-12-18T00:04:00.000+01:00

Do you have to create an application for iPhone/Facebook/Android ?

If your target is the B2C market and you reckon on early-adopters and geek people to talk about your project and make Buzz all around, you MUST create one application on these platforms. Just because it is where you need to be visible.

And the argument saying for example that iPhone is like no people is using it regarding the market share is a wrong argument. These people (including me) do have an iPhone (maybe 50% of them do?), have a facebook account, do tweet, will run Android soon, and will post an article to their blog embedding your application if you make it possible.

-- ahem, I've no iPhone for now, and of course would like to (message, message) ;)

Ah, and of course, your application must be free, fun, even useless, but nice, and will not necessarily help you earn some money, but will higher your buzz-meter and expose you to scalability failures eventually - in that case I can help :)

Goojet launch

2007-12-11T09:00:00.000+01:00

Goojet, a little French startup in which Anyware's team and friends of mine are involved, is launching today in beta.

Goojet aims to revolutionize the way you interact with Internet from your mobile phone.

All the best to Goojet!

Natural desire of rewriting software

2007-12-09T23:18:00.000+01:00

The decision of rewriting the code of a significant part of a system is usually taken by an experienced developer, by itself, because "the code sucks". And usually without any real business consideration.

The consequences of such rewrites are often disasters, making the company loose time and money, and even worse, breaking teams.

The more interesting and surprising thing is that this behavior is more often observed with talented developers (skilled, experienced, seniors ones) than with others less experienced developers.

The way I understand it is:

They see as an evidence how to code software in a better way.
They like simple, brilliant, but "simple to use", software. (I do too). And as a result, they tend to less tolerate complex, not easy to use code, and easily feel that the code developed by other people sucks. Plus, they don't want to rely on other people code, especially if it's "hard" to integrate or will make them write some "ugly" code.
They are more subject to the NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome. In some way, they would like all the software be written by themselves, if they had time to.
They see what to do in a global and precise view, and then underestimate the time needed to achieve their development (and test it, and document it, and QA it, and deploy it, and debug it, ...).

If you are a good developer, and willing to re-write any significant code by yourself, please refrain your nature desire. And ask yourself: what benefit for the company? For the business? Does your action will reduce the time to market of the product? Does the company will earn more money? Could you be more useful by doing some other more urgent stuff?

Maybe the code you want to replace is not perfect (even yours will be found perfectible by other people). But maybe it fits the company needs. At least for now. Maybe there's more urgent stuff to focus on. Maybe you will make the company loose time and money while you rewrite this code.

I have experienced this more than once on different projects. What I can say is that the more complex a project is (technically speaking) and is involving experienced developers, and the more I have been facing this NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome that makes people reject the code written by others, and rewrite applications.

More than that, I've been facing talented and respectable developers that refuse to have a look to systems written by their colleagues, and don't admit they need their features, and only want to code everything by themselves - they will then recode a large part of the system without having noticing it.

Worse than anything else, I've seen teams replacing teams in order to rewrite everything from scratch as a remedy to a malady... and finally fail, making the company loose time, money and talented people.

If these words are ringing a bell in your head, please comment :)

Note: these words are not directly related to any project I may talk about in this blog.

2007-10-02T14:54:00.000+02:00

Joost 1.0 is here !

You no longer need an invite

New features and new content inside

We've worked hard on it

Enjoy !

Cross-domain XSLT document() function in Firefox

2007-02-21T13:00:00.000+01:00

I'm a fan of firefox. For many good reasons tied to both my user and developer experiences. So I've been first frustrated when I discovered a feature that all browsers seem to implement in a good way but not firefox. Explanations:

This feature is related to the XSLT processor embedded in the browser, I'm using to quickly render XML documents into HTML without having to set up a web application.

Here is a sample:
1. the XML page opened directly with the browser:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="backend-system-versions.xsl" type="text/xml"?>
<?xml-stylesheet href="backend-system-versions.xsl" type="text/xsl"?>

<services>
<service href="http://my.server1/RestService1"/>
<service href="http://my.server2/RestService2"/>
</services>

Note: this XML doc refers to web services RestService1 and RestService2 of different domains my.server1 and my.server2 that are supposed to return the following XML I integrate in my page:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<root>
... usefull things ...
</root>

2. the XSL stylesheet looks like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<xsl:stylesheet xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform" version="1.0">

<xsl:template match="service">
<xsl:apply-templates select="document(@href)/root">
</xsl:apply-templates>

<xsl:template match="root">
... nice HTML rendering ...
</xsl:template>
...

</xsl:stylesheet>

The issue with firefox is the document(@href)function call which opens the XML document given by accessing the URI contained in the href attribute of the service node. Well... on IE and Safari it does, but not on firefox 2.

According to the Firefox bug #353886 this is to avoid a security hole.

It means that if my XSL stylesheet contains a document('https://your.bank/account') and if your browser (IE or Safari) have your certificate to access your bank account, my page hosted on my server accesses your bank account and you are in trouble...

So, is Firefox the only secure browser ? I'm not frustrated anymore :)

Now, as a general notice, trying to access a foreign domain using either XSLT document() function or an XMLHttpRequest is a fault. Your web browser should not allow that.

Or at least inform you what the page is trying to do. Maybe an option for firefox ?

Anyway, I have to set up a webapp for my stuff now...

Joost revealed !

2007-01-16T19:00:00.000+01:00

Today, The Venice Project has revealed its brand and commercial name: Joost™

and with it, its new web site joost.com and a new client 0.7.3 with a joost skin (for beta testers only [1]).

From now on, it means more content, a client still in beta but even more stable than ever, new features in the coming days, and more and more beta testers.

For me, it means also I can now talk about it using its real name :)

[1] As we have now more invitations to distribute, send me an email to get one if you really intend to help us and give good feedback on Joost - I keep one for you, Guillaume, who ordered a DSL connection to be able to watch Joost (or was it to work at home as well?)

The Venice Project from inside

2007-01-12T02:58:00.000+01:00

This project is really amazing.

Because of the incredible features we are building that will revolutionize the concept of TV,

because of this improbable roadmap we are conforming to successfully (just having a look to what we have achieved during those few months is amazing),

because of the team itself so skilled and recognized on so many open source projects (where is the other half part of the Apache Foundation members employed ?),

because of the management of this ambitious real startup which has means to do what she pretend to (this is the first real startup for me, and having participated to it from nearly the beginning of the product development is so exciting and so rich in things learned),

because of the vision and the means of Janus Friis and Nicklas Zennström, the rich and popular co-founders of Kazaa and Skype and now The Venice Project (to answer here to a question I've received several times: yes, I've met them, they are real, I've touched them, and I've also had several diners with them and the whole team, I'm not joking),

because it makes us stretch ourselves in such an environment. We have pressure, too much work planned for each of us (we accept it!), too much information to deal with, big operational constraints, and we are doing a good job and have good feedbacks from our colleagues. We are motivated and amazed by the work accomplished by ourselves and the whole team. We are proud and confident in the fact that we are writing (code lines actually) a page of the Internet history, something that will count.

We simply cannot imagine how proud we will be to have created this in few years.

I'm happy to see that some beta testers share those feelings with us as well, while they help us validating and enhancing the product. Thanks !

.Thibault.

Note: we are still happy to welcome new testers and new developers (we have a lot of incredible work to do and we are hiring people - needs for our team is really strong Java skills).

Note 2: to answer to the large number of emails from people asking for tokens, I'm sorry to say that as a small number of servers are running in data centers for now (increasing but still not enough today), we have a limited number of tokens to give and we first give them to people we know (I know you? ping me).

5 things you don't know about me

2006-12-20T11:52:00.000+01:00

This is the "5 things you don't know about me" meme. I've been tagged by Sylvain and so asked to do the same. I feel it amusing, so here it is:

I love driving, especially fast cars and on sinuous roads.
I have a strong allergia to pollen. Each year, around June and during 1 month and a half, I am stuck in sneeze attacks. My eyes irritates me, and my nose turns into a fountain.
I learned music theory and guitar playing at Toulouse National Conservatory ("Conservatoire National de Région de Toulouse") during 10 years. Unfortunately, I no more play the guitar since 1991 (but only for my kids actually). I can still compose music (once again, only for my kids).
I'm a very calm and patient person. But really nervous inside ;) I can be stressed but not often look like stressed. I'm cool-headed.
I love "cèpe" mushrooms (boletus category) and good wine.

Next victims of this meme will be Benjamin, Libby, Ludovic, Eric, and Andrea.

Fall found in Leiden

2006-11-01T00:39:00.000+01:00

Fall is like it doesn't exist in France this year.
We just had 25°C during one entire week until October 30th in Toulouse.
Amazing. New flowers, mowers music everywhere, kids enjoying swimming pools on Sunday... October 29th !

As I was worrying about fall, I finally decided (or was it the project I work on who decided for me?) to go to Leiden to find fall (and work a bit and drink few beers, as usual)... and acclimate myself before winter arrives.
Found ! Wind, rain, a 12°C temperature (which is quite high for here, but like normal fall in Toulouse).
Ready to go back to France on Thursday evening, with fall in my luggage !

A Voluntarily Loosely Organized Organization

2006-07-20T19:03:00.000+02:00

Why a loosely organized project team is more efficient than a heavily organized one

could have been another title for this note.

During this last year, my way of thinking management has definitively changed. The more I apply these concepts of unorganization, the more we progress and are efficient (and the more I experience difficulties with some of my colleagues of the management staff who consider the more organized is a team, the more efficient it is).

Let define what I mean by loosely organized organization:

First, our company claims to be proficient in J2EE web applications and Eclipse applications solutions. This implies strong skills, improved everyday, and that a pool of experienced software engineers are accustomed to digging around for new technologies, evaluate them and choose using them or not. In other words, our engineers are autonomous - this is a strong criteria for hiring here.

The "revolutionary" idea (I don't feel it so revolutionary but natural to me actually) is that the same way guys are able to choose a technology, they are able to choose the tools they want to work with (machines, software, frameworks, etc.), the right methods, the place/role they can take in a project, the people they have to communicate with, the tasks they have to plan. And if they experience difficulty to do it, the manager (well, me) is here to help everyone who asks.

The historical way of managing technical people that was applied to our engineers in a first step - my observation applies to French big companies and IT companies - can be roughly summed up into:

defining methods (telling guys how to do things)
defining roles (telling guys what is their place, and stay in their shoes)
defining tasks (granularity depending on experience, but project leader defining more precise tasks for less experienced guys)
defining tools and services developers need
defining people developers will communicate with (either clients or people of our company like experts)

If this model perfectly fits corporate developers needs, providing them an reassuring environment, it also totally prevents them from any creativity and natural talent expression. Not completely saying that some companies/people found any interest in maintaining people creativity under control, I only notice that this way of management is the most current.

As we hire guys for their proficiency, their talent, their autonomy, their creativity and their accomplishment potential, I've made the bet to manage projects in such an unorganized way.

To sum up, every developer has to:

find their natural place in the project, which may change during the project (or ask for some help)
know what to do (or ask for some help)
choose the right tools (or ask for some help)
use the right methodology (or ask for some help)
know time constraints and other constraints (or ask for some help; I use to remind everybody constraints periodically)
help others folks

And my job is mainly to provide help in these domains, and take care of more long-term goals and constraints. Note that in our organization, any guy saying "I dont know what to do" without having asked any help before, has a problem. In a more conventional organization, it would denote a lack of management.

To conclude, I admit this model works because guys are autonomous, talented and motivated. As a result, everybody stay motivated and is free to organize his work, and find his place in the project. And everybody improve very fast (including me! ).

Ho, and yes, we are hiring ! (Java, Java, Java, XML, and web applications/semantic web/distributed computing/rule engines appreciated - based in Toulouse, France)

Nébuloscope of Anyware Technologies

2006-02-02T13:31:00.000+01:00

Jean Véronis' Nébuloscope generates a kind of definition of one or several given words, from a french web pages searcher point of view.

This is an exemple for my company : Anyware Technologies. Pretty interesting.

(some translations : informatique means software engineering, formation means training, logiciel means software, societe and entreprise means company)

We could read this tag cloud like this (bigger words first): Anyware Technologies provides technical solutions for software applications development using Cocoon and Java. The company is located at Toulouse and employs Sylvain Wallez.

Actually, even if this definition is too restrictive, it is not so far from the reality. And it points out some lacks of communication about Anyware's M2M business, Eclipse plugins developments expertise and few other things.

Topcased: an Eclipse open source MDA toolkit

2006-01-23T13:06:00.000+01:00

Toulouse is known to be the home base of the European aerospace industry.

Many big industries located here build critical systems and software with a long life cycle of development and maintenance. During the last 20 years, they all have developped/used methodologies to enhance the quality of the software they made. They have joined up with the MDA process use, even if they use different models depending on technical fields (UML, HOOD, AADL, etc.). In this process, designing is the main phase of a project, as the code, tests and documentation are generated from that model.

As these companies don't sell software but planes or satellites, it is natural they all want join efforts to develop methods and tools for critical software development.
An Airbus departement in charge of methods and tools has made an important step forward and has proposed to start an opensource project to develop a toolkit for critical software development. Others industries (not necessarily located near Toulouse or in France) are welcome to use and/or participate to the project.

The Topcased project has been created in 2004 with the most important industries involved in aerospace fields.

Anyware Technologies who has joined the project in 2004 as Eclipse platform expert and a specialist of opensource projects (Anyware Technologies is involved in projects of Apache and Eclipse foundations), is the architect of the platform.

Technically, the project is based on Eclipse platform and concepts. It uses GEF and EMF Eclipse's subprojects, and generates model editors from the meta-model of languages like UML. These meta-models are written using eCore, a subset of MOF model, provided by EMF.
Topcased is also called to be bridged to GMF and EMFT Eclipse's subprojects.

Topcased is also part of Aerospace Valley "pôle de competitivité" french regional project that is to be financed (in part) by the french government (actually, no money has been received yet since the government acceptance last year, but the hope is still here). Topcased is one of the most active projects of "pôles de compétitivité".

Today, Topcased provides the following fully usabled graphical modeling editors : eCore (meta-modeling of languages), ULM2 for classes, use-cases and states diagrams, SAM (automaton model).

Topcased download, GForge and mailing lists can be found here.

Should we wish a bad new year to our enemies ?

2006-01-03T20:16:00.000+01:00

First, it would change from wishing a happy new year, and it would also avoid posting yet another best wishes message to people we don't really know who they are and what they need for 2006, even if we like them. For instance, does posting an "happy new year" message to this blog make sens ? (who read this blog ?)

The idea has come from my CEO who has responded this way to many traditional impersonal greetings emails he received for the new year:

Nothing is easier than sending an email message or a SMS to the whole address book, or sending a post to a blog, wishing everybody a very happy new year 2006 for them and their family. To who ? Which family ? What's about the person who have no concubine and no parents because they've just died last december... ?

What's the sense for such a message if we don't really know the person who will receive it ? and if we don't personalize our message and produce an effort to make it ? What will be the sens for this action for the rising generation which is accommodated to the easy broadcast communication mode ?

Wishing a bad new year to all our enemies is quite easier ! As they are enemies, we don't have any time to spend to personalize any wishes. Maybe, for a "good" enemy, we should take time to make a strong message... But in this case, we might prefer spending time to write dedicated messages to our friends.

Based on this reflexion, I'm trying to make dedicated wishes to my friends, wishing them for 2006 something personal and different for each of them.

AJAX application in 2003-2004

2005-11-29T00:33:00.000+01:00

As I am making a slide presentation of an application we made for Alcatel Space in 2003-2004, I realize we made an AJAX web application, before the term of "AJAX" was invented.

This is a prototype of a general public skinable web application that can run on either PC or PocketPC web browsers. It allows users to browse the web, listen to musics (AAD and MP3 formats) and radios (streaming), watch films (mp2 and mp4 formats) and receive personnal messages.

The server-side of the application runs on an Alcatel equipment that receives satellite broadcasting data, learns user habits (our application catch user commands), and determines a user profile in order to catch broadecasted data that fits user care. It proposes then thematic channels where all types of data can be merged : browsable web pages, audio and video subjects.

Technically, the web server generates one HTML page (according to user terminal type) that includes Javascript code allowing it to communicate with the server via XML messages. The web page refreshes only parts that need to be refreshed in the page, without reloading the whole page.

A limitation to this prototype was it uses only IE ActiveX functions and Windows Media and Flash plugins. Today, such a prototype would use any AJAX compliant browser. As Opera just released a new version of its browser for mobile that is AJAX compatible, why not make it run on mobiles ?

The Mouse and the Pillow

2005-11-25T00:19:00.000+01:00

Q: What is the common denominator between the computer mouse and the bed pillow ?

A: According to a subject developped on "France info" radio this morning, they are the 2 objects we are the most in contact with every day. Of course, this doesn't consider objects we wear (like clothes or jewels). And it only considers the population category that uses computers.

According to the radio, the computer mouse has won against the bed pillow which has been the number one for a long long time. :)

Iterative development

2005-11-23T00:55:00.000+01:00

I experienced twice a successful setting up of iterative development in a software project (Eclipse Java projects).

The rule was: the software development team meets the customer every monday (physically or not) in order to set up the week roadmap which defines the actions to perform and functionnalities to realise within the week. Every friday, the project leader validates the developments and publishes a release. The client tests this release the week after and makes remarks that will be discussed during the next monday meeting.

This aspect of the Extreme Programming provides us :

less management level documents and formal discussion documents as the customer is more implied in the life of the project (big french companies love formal documents for communicating)
less overrun risk as the customer validates the project progression step after step (in term of days spent, final result to obtain)
best results as the customer can react at anytime and decide to change functionnalities while the project is getting along.

This last point sounds like an evidence on big and/or technological projects if we consider that neither a customer nor us can make an optimal requirements evaluation, specifications or design writing, without doing some spadework on the project.

But the second point means the client may accept the contractual requirements may change during the project.

Making contracts on an inclusive basis is in our customers culture (french companies). They believe this is the only way to be sure a subcontractor will do all the job and in a "costs controlled" way. This point of view is not based on reality. In fact, the specifications details (the contract is based on) are often insufficiant. Worse, major functionnalities may be omitted in the contract (and will have to be purshased in addition while some useless functionnalities have been realised).

The iterative development provides a real improvement but is based on trust. A customer will enter this iterative development approach only if he trusts on you and/or he trusts on his ability to manage you in a technical way (meaning he's technically proficient enough to be self-confident).

Is Google the web 2.0 ?

2005-11-22T11:39:00.000+01:00

As suggested in the Robert Cringely's article referenced on Bertrand's blog, we can ask ourselves if Google isn't about to become the incontrovertible enter point of the web 2.0:

it will soon have the first WebOS distribution, providing data storage on virtual drives and bases, web office programs, and of course services powered by their search engines and bases
its would make a web browser that will be the only program required on a computer to do computing via the web 2.0 (as all data and software are hosted on web servers)
it would develop the most super-high bandwidth connections at all peering ISPs so that its services is the "nearest" of you (services with the shortest access time)
it is today the incontroversible search engine so that your existing on the web is quite depending on Google search engine referencement.

This blog as example :

This blog is made thanks to Google blog (Blogger). It takes me 5 minutes to purchase the "dexhian.net" domain and a 20MB remote disk (for 1€/year) with FTP and HTTP service. I bet this blog can be hosted freely by Google on a virtual drive soon (actually, it can be hosted by Google but without letting me manage all files as I do on my virtual disk, and without allowing me to link my domain to my blog).
Into Blogger web application, I set up my blog in few minutes also, so that it publishes my blog (the web pages) onto my remote disk via FTP. I easily chose a template and configured some wanted behaviors.
Blogger offers me the capability for publishing some meta-data about me and my blog. But I can also use Google base service to add more meta-data and structured information linked to it (see Sylvain's article).

Easy, powerfull, fast, reliable... and soon all controlled by Google ?

(At last, don't forget people find my blog using Google search... of course)

The 3rd era of computing today !

2005-11-18T22:42:00.000+01:00

I consider we can distinguish 3 era of computing from computer users point of view.

The 1st era of computing started with the birth of the home computer: The computer is used by the general public like a fabulous tool, able to perform text processing, printing, programmable tasks, etc. Because of software, people have to buy and then install them on their computers.

The 2nd era of computing started with the birth of the global network: Internet. This era connects computers together, and the world wide web provides information publishing, information search, on-line services and business arround it. One program is free and can be found on every computer : the web browser.

These days have seen the birth of the WebOS (also called sometimes Web 2.0) that start the 3rd era of computing. Web servers provide personnal data hosting (albums, emails, music, text documents, spreadsheets, files, data bases, ...), online programs dealing with this data (text processing, spreadsheet application, emails and blogs applications, musics and albums managers, etc.), and services. All is accessible from a simple web browser freely available on each computer. The personal computer gradualy disapears from homes and is replaced by less intelligent home devices like TVs that allows people to browse the web and access all personnal data, programs and services. No more need for buying or installing software. Only buying services (all services are free for basic functions and only advanced functions are sold).

Is the 3rd era of computing a reality today ? I think so. I'm writing these lines because Google has just opened his new Google base service allowing people to create, store and use personnal data bases on line (cf. Sylvain's article). We already know that Google will open soon his Google disk service, offering people a way to store every kind of files on a personal remote disk hosted by Google (and apply web programs and services on them ?).

Writely, a web text processor, WikiCalc a web spreadsheet application, and JotSpot offer an interesting begining for web office applications.

Could we assemble the first webOS distribution with Google tools and services and office applications like Writely ("Google office" soon ?) ?

An interesting tool is Google desktop search, which is able to insert data localy stored onto your computer into web pages you browse on the net. It makes the link beetwen the web 1.0 and web 2.0 era.

Finally, web browsers like Firefox or the browser it seems Google is actually working on, would be the minimal real eavy software you'd need on a computer, or a TV, video game box, etc., to boot the WebOS.

You can help

2005-11-18T02:17:00.000+01:00

One goal for this blog is to enhance my English language. If you read this, you can help me. How ? Just let me know if you jolt while reading some of these lines.

Also, feel free to give some comments to any article of this blog.