QuickTip : Generating project structure using Maven

When you are starting a new project it is very easy to get started if the project structure can be built for you. Maven provides a plugin called maven-archetype-plugin which can help you generate the desired project structure depending on the application that you are trying to build.

The Archetype Plugin allows the user to build archetype containers. These archetype containers contains the pom, default source, test, resources, test-resources, and site-resources files in a specific directory structure. The content of the pom, the default files, and the directory structure depends on the what archetype container was built.

To create a simple java application you can use

mvn archetype:create -DgroupId=[your project's group id] -DartifactId=[your project's artifact id] -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-quickstart

Likewise to create a webapp use something like this

So your Agile adoption failed! Ever heard of Shu-Ha-Ri?

This story would interest you if you are new to Agile and are planning to adopt it with full enthusiasm.

Xlabs started Agile adoption with the full fanfare. It had the upper management support and the team was convinced about its values and the results it could bring to the table. Four iterations down, Xlabs started feeling that things were not working out as well as they expected them to be. They tried for a few iterations more with even more disappointing results. Finally they came to the conclusion that Agile was overrated and worked only for a few organizations. Let down by the results they moved back to what they had been doing for ages, waterfall. The management however was reading about the agile development success stories around the world and decided to do a root cause of what went wrong.

Within a week the process auditing folks came out with the basic flaw with the way Agile was adopted. Xlabs had no idea about Shu-Ha-Ri! and hence they adopted agile in the incorrect way thus leading the current state of affairs.

So what is Shu-Ha-Ri and why is it so important?

Role of an Agile Architect

This post is a reproduction of my article which has been published on Agile Journal by the name The Shiny New Agile Architect. You can download the pdf here.

Recently there has been a lot of talk on whether we need an Architect on agile teams or not. There have been never-ending discussions on various forums both inside organizations and out in the public questioning the value that an architect can bring to the agile project where the architecture evolves with every iteration. This has led many traditional Architects to scramble for cover and opened gates for a new breed of architect, the Agile Architect. The traditional ivory tower Architects are gradually proving to be the weakest link in the chain for agile projects. The bulk of the traditional Architect’s responsibilities are now split amongst the agile team, thus leaving them without a lot of work that they were previously doing. The Agile Architects are emerging in line with Charles Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest.” The role of an Agile Architect on the team is unquestionable and many agile teams vouch for the fact that he is one of the most valuable members of any agile software development team.
So who is an Agile Architect? How do you identify if the Architect on your team is an Agile Architect?

Do you follow Agile? You are fired!

The post that follows is based on a real life conversation that I had with a friend of mine, who works for a big Systems Integrator. His company, like all other companies today, has the buzz word “Agile” spread all over their website, but the ground reality is different, in fact very different. It shows the huge Gap which is present between what is said about Agile and how it is understood at these so called big companies.

They have scores if not hundreds of projects going along at the same time. Some of the teams follow agile in the real sense and others do not.

What follows is the hard reality that agile teams have to eventually face in an organization that is either new to Agile or embraces agile only for marketing material.

QuickTip: Android does not load my application in the emulator

I faced this problem when I was working with the Android Eclipse plugin and sometimes my application or the application changes would not show up on the emulator.

You might want to check out this link which Google has for the same problem. However in my case it was not helpful.

What worked in my case was killing the adb process. If you are using Ubuntu then goto System->Administration->System Monitor and hunt for the adb process, which would be sleeping. Kill the process and rerun your application.

On Windows you can go to the task manager and kill the adb process.

Your changes should start showing up now.

Introducing Google Android

A couple of weeks back I was at the TiE Summit 2007. There I could hardly find anyone who was not interested in the mobile space. Mobile phone space definitely is something which cannot be missed given that today the number of mobile phones far out number the number of personal computers. Also, with each passing day they are getting better memory and better computing power. It would soon become a necessity for all major e-commerce sites to offer their services over the mobile phone assuming that they are not already working on it. Apart from this there is a lot of potential for specific mobile phone applications which would help the consumer do better personally and professionally.Almost coinciding with the mobile space euphoria, Google released Android. It is a a fully integrated mobile “software stack” that consists of an operating system, middleware, user-friendly interface and applications. The important objective is to deliver a vastly improved web experience on mobile devices, equal to what people can experience on a desktop computer, in contrast to the limited functionality on today’s mobile phones.

At the TiE Summit I also heard many speakers saying that “portal is dead.” The next technology wave is dependent on the platform. Many applications and services would be built depending on the platform and a business would be successful depending on which platform does it align with. So if you align on the Android platform then assuming that Android is successful, you could be successful as an Android service provider, Android powered device maker etc etc. HTC would be launching Android powered phones in 2008.

Given all of the above I decided to check out the Android offering over the weekend and here are my initial findings