Build vs. Buy
A common question in IT departments is whether to provide a capability by building custom software or by buying a package. If the business process you are supporting is part of your competitive advantage you should build custom software, if not you should buy a package and adjust your business process to fit the way the package works.
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How to translate “business value” of things that are technically important
User Stories should describe what a user wants the system to do. Purely technical tasks should usually be implemented as part of a User Story. But, sometimes there are technical tasks which cannot be directly linked to customer value. Things like ...
How to build the perfect number of blank records for a nested form
When you render a nested form for a Movie which has_many :actors, you want to render the right number of blank Actor forms. The right number means:
- A minimum number of blank forms so the user can add more
Actorsto an existingMovie, ...
Jason Calacanis vs. David Heinemeier Hansson on This Week in Startups - (37signals)
An intense debate about business models, bubbles, capitalism, quality of life, market share vs. profit share, running a business vs. selling a business, and a variety of other related topics from episode 46 of This Week in Startups.
Mule Design Studio’s Blog: Tips On Buying Design
You’re a business, calling a business, about conducting business. Don’t be surprised when money comes up.
makandra cards: A knowledge base on web development, RoR, and DevOps
What is makandra cards?
We are makandra, a team of 60 web developers, DevOps and UI/UX experts from Augsburg, Germany. We have firmly anchored the sharing of knowledge and continuous learning in our company culture. O...
Selling your software in China « Successful Software
The first thing I need to say, right off the bat: Chinese users will not buy your software. Period. That does not mean that there is no money to be made, it simply means that they will not pay for your software license.
The Case Against Queues
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use a queue." Now they have an unbounded number of problems.
Networked message queues like ActiveMQ, RabbitMQ, ZeroMQ, and a host of other Java inspired software tumors ar...
The challenging setup of an offshore project
After managing a few agile projects from India and learning the tricks of the trade, I have been wondering why life is much easier when you are working closely with the client as compared to working offshore. What worried me more was that I had to...
Web Operations 101 For Developers
This post is not about devops, it's not about lean startups, it's not about web scale, it's not about the cloud, and it's not about continuous deployment. This post is about you, the developer who's main purpose in life has always been to build gr...
Kanban vs. Iterative Development — Agile Web Operations
If you need big synchronization points, e.g. for big marketing campaigns, you might be better off using an iterative development approach. If you want to ensure a continuous flow of features, which are optimized for time to market (cycle time), Ka...