Mia retpoŝtopolitiko

Karaj kontaktoj, mi vidis belegan prelegon fare de Luis Suarez ĉe Forum Internazionale Enterprise 2.0 okazinta en Varezo ĉi-semajne. Kaj mi prenis decidon, danke al tio: neniam plu mi perdos mian tempon kaŭze de retpoŝto. Morgaŭ komenciĝos ESSAP kaj probable la semajno longos por mi, kaj tuj poste mia tempo estos dediĉiita al la verkado de mia doktora disertaĵo. Do, ĝis la fino de Oktobro mi adoptos retpoŝtopolitikon tre striktan, kiun mi priskribas ĉi tie: la ligo ĉiamas en mia retpoŝto-subskribo.

Unue, mi lasis ĉiun diskutliston, almenaŭ en mia menso. Kaj do? Simple: mi ne legas plu tiujn mesaĝojn. Se ekestos projekto por mi, kial ne uzi vikion, kiu multe pli efikas ol listo? Malfermu senpage unu en PBWiki, la sekureco estas tre bone zorgita.

Por renkontiĝoj, bnvolu sendi al mi invitilon en Gugla Kalendaro. Mi kontrolas almenaŭ po unu tago - mia moleskino utilas por noti surpapere, sed ĝ estas nur sekurkopio.

Se vi volas sendi dokumenton kiun mi devas ŝanĝi, ne sendu algue al retmesaĝo. Denove, uzu vikion aŭ invitu min al Gugla Dokumento, se ni devas verki prezentadon kune (mi ĵus finfaris pro la somera lernejo kaj funkciis perfekte). Algluaĵoj estas tute ne efikaj por kunverkado.

Mi uzas nur unu blogon, ĉi-tiun. Neniam mi volas zorgi por multaj blogoj, maksimume mi sendos la ligon al ĉi tiu.

Se vi volas diskonigi spertadon, konsideru la eblon verki blog-mesaĝon kaj sendu al mi la url-on per tujmesaĝilo, aŭ, se ĝi rilatas al unuela mia blogaĵo, verku la url-on en komento. Vi trovos min facile per Skajpo. Mi posedas skajpa poŝtelefono, tiel ke ne bezonatas sidiĝi fronte al komputilo. Tiel vi povos scii se mi volas esti interrompita aŭ ne. Fojfoje vi trovos mi en Gugla Babilejo, sed ĉiam malpli ofte. Ĉiuokaze, vi diros al mi kie mi troviĝas, pli ol kion mi nun faras.

Kiam mi estas eksterrete, kontaktu min pro profesiaj kialoj en LinkedIn (plejofte) aŭ Naymz (estas alia mia nomo, sed uzu ĉi-tiun, la alian mi ne sukcesis forigi! !). Por personaj aferoj, mesaĝu al mi en Ipernity (estas multaj esperantistoj ene) aŭ en Facebook, pli rare en Hi5.

Finfine, konate ke mi ŝatas librojn, konigu vian libran spertaron aŭ sugestaron per aNobii, la nura socia reto kiun mi partoprenas. Mi ne partoprenas al aliaj, komprenu min. La miaj estas multaj uzataj kaj facilaj, kaj eĉ tradukitaj en viaj favorataj lingvoj, plimapli. Kial ne registri?

Tiu retpoŝtopolitiko daŭrigos ĝis Oktobro 2008, kiam espereble mi finos la verkadon de mia doktora disertaĵo. Kaj poste? Vi legos ĉi tie!

Le mie politiche di posta elettronica

Cari contatti, ho assistito a un bellissimo contributo di Luis Suarez al Forum Internazionale Enterprise 2.0 tenuto a Varese questa settimana. E ho deciso di prendere una decisione, a seguito del contributo: non voglio più perdere tempo con le email. Domani inizia la ESSAP e sarà sicuramente una settimana lunga, dopodiché il mio tempo sarà assorbito dalla scrittura della tesi. Dunque, fino alla fine di ottobre adotterò delle politiche di risposta alle email molto strette, che descrivo qui: il link rimarrà permanente nella mia firma delle email.

Innanzitutto, ho lasciato tutte le liste di discussione, almeno nella mia mente. Cosa significa? Semplice: non leggo più quei messaggi. Se c'è qualche progetto che volete propormi, perché non usare un wiki? È molto più efficiente di una lista. Potete aprirne uno gratis su PBWiki, vi dà la possiblità di curare la vostra privacy in maniera molto dettagliata.

Per fissare un appuntamento con me, per favore mandatemi un invito su Google Calendar. Lo guardo almeno una volta al giorno - ho una moleskine per prendere nota su carta quando non sono in linea, ma è una specie di backup.

Se volete mandarmi un documento che devo modificare, non speditelo come allegato. Di nuovo, usate un wiki o invitatemi a un Documento Google, se dobbiamo scrivere una presentazione insieme (l'ho appena fatto per la scuola estiva ed è andata alla grande). Gli allegati sono un sistema inefficiente per la scrittura collaborativa.

Io uso un blog solo, questo. Non voglio perdere tempo su blog multipli (è senza senso per me; altrove pubblico solo link a questo blog!).

Se volete condividere un'esperienza, considerate la possibilità di scrvere un post sul vostro blog e di mandarmi la url con un istant messanger, o, se è correlato a un mio post, scrivete l'url nel commento a quel post. Mi trovate facilmente su Skype. Possiedo un telefonino skype, così non devo essere per forza seduto con il mio portatile. Così potete sapere se voglio essere interrotto o no. A volte mi trovate anche su GTalk, ma sempre meno. In ogni caso, vi dirò dove sono, più che cosa faccio.

Quando sono fuori linea, mi potete trovare per cose professionali su LinkedIn (più frequentemente) o Naymz (lguardate questo account per favore, ce n'è un altro che non riesco a chiudere!). Per cose personali, cercatemi su Ipernity (specie se siete esperantisti) o Facebook, più raramente su Hi5.

Infine, poiché mi piacciono i libri, potete condividere esperienze libresche con me o suggerimenti grazie ad aNobii, l'unica rete sociale a tema di cui faccio parte. Non mi iscriverò ad altre, capitemi. Credo che potete iscrivervi voi a una delle mie, sono tutte molto usate e facili, e più o meno tradotte nelle vostre lingue preferite.

Queste politiche di posta dureranno fino a Ottobre 2008, quando spero di aver concluso la scrittura della tesi. E dopo? Restate sintonizzati!

My email policy

Dear contacts, I have listened to a great talk by Luis Suarez at the International Enterprise 2.0 forum in Varese this week. And I have taken a decision, after his talk: I do not want to waste time with email anymore. Tomorrow ESSAP will start and it will be definitely a long week, and afterwards I have to concentrate on my PhD dissertation writing. So, until the end of October I will adopt a very strict email policy, that I describe here: the link will be in my email signature.

First of all, I'm unsubscribing to every mailing list I ever had, at least in my mind. So what? Simply I do not read anymore mailing list messages. If you have a project to take over with me, consider that wikis are far more efficient than mailing lists. You can open one for free at PBWiki, that let users have full control on their privacy policies, if you want to do so.

For meeting arrangement with me, please invite me using Google Calendar. I check it at least once per day - I have a moleskine with me so to drop a note on paper when I'm not online, but it's like a backup.

If you want to send me a document I should edit, don't send it to me as an email attachment. Again, use a wiki or invite me to share a Google Doc, if you have to make a presentation collectively (I've just done it for the summer school with colleagues and it was great). Attachements are bad way to manage collaborative writing.

I do use only one blog, this one. I don't want to waste time taking care to multiple blogs (It's simply nonsensical for me; the only posts I publish elsewhere are about the permalink of this blog!).

If you want to share an experience, consider to write a blog post of your own and send the url via instant messanging to me, or, if related to a blog post of mine, write the url as a comment. You will find me quite easily via Skype. I own a skypephone, so I don't need to be sit in front of my laptop. In that way you will know if I want to be interrupted or not. Sometime you will also find me at GTalk, but more and more with less frequency. In any case, I will tell you where I am, more than what I'm doing.

When I'm off line, you can find me for professional topics at LinkedIn (more frequently) or Naymz (look at this account, there is another one I couldn't switch off!). For personal topics, look into Ipernity (especially if you are an Esperantist) or Facebook, more rarely in Hi5.

Last not least, I'm fond of books, so you can share experiences or suggestions through Anobii. That's the only focused social network I take part. I won't subscribe to any other social networks anymore, sorry. I think you can join one of the above, they are all quite popular and easy to use, and more or less translated in your favorite languages.

This email policy will last until October 2008, when hopefully I would have finished my PhD dissertation. Afterwards? Stay tuned!

These are the politicians I like...

Another Pomodoro expert in Sweden

The Pomodoro Technique was invented by Francesco Cirillo, who is one of the first XPer in Italy, if not the first one in absolute, but since then the PT is spreading around the world. A clever guy has just written to me, and he has a very interesting post about the PT and pair programming. He has interesting observations about breaks. Check it out!

P.S.
OT: Download Firefox 3.0 today to achieve the Guiness Record!

Not all esperantists are equal...

The history of Esperanto is full of different politic visions enforced by small esperanto supporter groups. But the Esperanto League for Freedom in Hokkaido is quite amazing:

The international language Esperanto is meant to foster peace and international understanding. But a group of Esperanto speakers planning to attend protests at the upcoming G-8 summit in Hokkaido in July are causing concern for Japan's security services.

Read the full story at Der Spiegel International!

Spread Firefox 3 Download Day!

Have you registered?

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord

If not you should - it's possibly the most important cultural milestone in open source development in years. Thanks a lot to Dario for getting me aware

Pomodori at Limerick

| View | Upload your own

Learning agile techniques playing

I've just taken part to a very informative workshop lead by David Parson about choosing the right technique at the right time in your team. The main goal is to build a Human Powered Machine on A4 trasparent paper sheet, on which you draw upon as slices with colored pens as the technology. In the team, there is the stakeholder, who prioritizes user stories (already written, as in the XP game, with their own business values), the developers, and a tracker/scribe (of course, it's me). Moreover, a QA person who decides if the stories pass, i.e. he performs acceptance tests, will act for every team involved. There were two teams, with 4 developers and 1 stakeholder. The game lasts three iterations, 20 minutes each (more or less a pomodoro...): 5 minutes planning, 10 developing, 5 testing on the integration table. The interesting part is that you have a plateau of techniques you are (not) allowed to use. For example, if you do not choose continuous integration, you can't use the previous slices.

In my team, Peter Bell took the role of the leader at once, so that the other developers initially were shy to propose their ideas, and also pushed our stakeholder, Noura. But it was Thomas that posed the key question: "what kind of vehicle?" and the common decision was: a kind of a bike. On the contrary, Philippe was the first to start actually developing, with a lot of details, unlike the others (each should develop alone in the first iteration). The integration phase on the table was quite good, and Peter had the idea to write on the stories what each should develop. Great idea: Philippe and Peter refactored their own work, Karl choosed another user story why Thomas started again and designed an improved version 2 of his slice. Now the QA person should evaluate the demo, and everything got ok, save two stories about a luggage feature and a mirror.

Iteration two: regression testing was chosen by our team, while the other choosed continous integration. New stories A pair in each table was now allowed. Thomas and Karl exchanged a lot of ideas, while Peter and Philippe talked with the stakeholder, Noura. The QA got well! Fantastic! The team was excited and, during iteration three, they never losed the focus, i.e. to design a human-powered vehicle, unlike the other team. So they discarded absurd stories like flying. What stucked me is Philippe, who made a spike who proved to be effective, even if developers were allowed to work together for the final integration. We won the game! In any case, it was funny and informative. David told us that the materials will be available on his web page.

My eXperience with the Poppendiecks: eliminating waste

I took part in a workshop lead by Mary and Tom Poppendieck and it was quite an eXperience. I realised that in my activity of agile facilitator I never focused on the goal of eliminating waste. What's waste? Everything that it's not value from the point of view of the customer. Ask yourself, how much of your code base is useful, i.e. actually used by your customer? What is not used is junk, and its complexity is an exponential cost. This is the first source of waste in software development.

The second source is handsoffs, and it is a big one. Every time you separate:
- responsability (what to do);
- knowledge (how to do);
- action (doing it!);
- feedback (learning from results)
...you are in a handsoff state. I think in that sense the Pomodoro Technique is really a marvellous tool to reveal handsoffs.

The third source of waste is task switching: some people pass more time in juggling eggs in switching than in actually doing their task!

The fourth source is delays. Where you find queues you will have delays, and the only answer you can give is stop accepting more than you can handle (put it differently: reduce input flow to the level of output flow or increase output flow; if you can't eliminate at all, put in a "never list").
Other situations. When you should turn again to your supervisor it is delay. Another example is merging time: please, do continuous integration instead! To discover delays, ask yourself this kind of questions: how long do you go alive? how much time from decision to release (this reminds me of the kanban practice, where you have to be start, on progress, completed, delivered area so to organize your product backlog).

When asked what about testing and waste, Mary answered that the structure you should test any continous integration cycle (3 min.), your content should be test every day, and the layout/UI every release candidate (RC) -- this is on the delivered software at the end of each sprint. It is interesting the distinction between RC, i.e. after each 2-week sprint, while a full release is in the mind of the customer, typically every 3 months, when you've got the money (at least outside Italy; bt this is another - sad - story). The only tests not to be performed (only) automatically are in the layout layer. But this topic is out of the Poppendieck's workshop. I will coever UCD (User Centered Design) and interactive design and agile in another post later. Stay tuned!

eXtreme Limericks at Limerick...

Open space sessions are one of the best tradition I find in XP and Agile conferences, and I've just catched one of them really worth blogging.

The problem: how can non-programmers have an experience of pairing? Martin Heider, a German agilist here at XP2008, had a clever idea about this: eXtreme Poetry. And of course, we are at Limerick, so we will write... limericks. A limerick is a typical English poetry form, easy enough to learn in minutes and well structured. The metaphor is that coding is much like writing poetry. For instance, limericks should "compile", i.e. the rhyming structure should be respected, and also the rhythm, and after compiling you can perform refactoring as well.

The idea is to write limericks in pairs about agile themes. There is a 5 min. long time-box for the pair as a "coding" iteration, with a third person acting as an observer. After the iteration is finished, a small retrospective begins, about what occurred. It happens that at first time we were the only two people in the open space, so me and Martin tried to write a limerick about pair programming:

I know a programmer searching for pair
running through all rooms looking everywhere
   nearly giving up
   after his stand up
doesn't understand why they don't care.

The interesting part is that me and Martin constantly switch our roles of driver and navigator: I put the scenario (someone looking for a pair), Martin wrote down the word 'pair' and the first and second lines arrived fluently. The fourth line was proposed by Martin and I completed with the fifth one, then Martin posed the word 'care' and I completed the limerick. Five minutes done. We didn't retain our ideas in our mind, we directly put on the whiteboard, so that your pair should not wonder what eggs are you juggling in your head. Our small retrospective put the problem of exerpertise in the exercise: what if an English speaker comes (like a senior programmer in a programming pair)? And lucky we, Charlie Poole came in. After a small explanation of the eXtreme Poetry mechanisms and goals, Charlie paired with me and he started thinking alone. After a minute, he produced what follows in seconds:

I do not want to write a test
'cause coding is what I do best
   and if it's wrong
   it won't be long

..and I had only the time to write it down! In any case, I found the last line, that rhymed with 'pest' (a synonym of bug) as uneasy to understand, and Charlie agreed. Then Martin said something like: "you need to fill the rest" and the last line came directly thereafter:

I do not want to write a test
'cause coding is what I do best
   and if it's wrong
   it won't be long
'til someone else completes the rest

The retrospective showed that Charlie is not used to work in pairs for creative tasks, and also write an essay with an other person is not easy for him. The reflection is that people who don't like programming in pair conseder coding as a creative activity, essantialy an art, as poetry, and consequently they want to be recognized as the unique authors of their creations. Charlie explained to us the differences between syllabic languages like Italian or German and English in regards of the rythm (wow!). Then Martin underlined the fact that an English native is really a senior in limericking compared with a non-native! So pairing is difficult in such a question. The third pair was made by Martin and Charlie. They started from the word 'agile' and spend 3 minutes to find how to have rhymes: 'fragile '(ok), 'for long while' (more or less)... After my pomodoro ringed, this was written on the whiteboard:

A company wants to be agile
but they did it their very own style

As an observer, I noticed that they got blocked by a too difficult word, they should at once find another start point so to complete the iteration in time. Did you ever had such an experience in pair programming?!? In any case, Martin completed it in extra time:

A company wants to be agile
but they did it their very own style
   commanding from the top
   it was really a great flop
I have think about that for a while

I proposed to have 5 minutes for refactoring, at at the end there became 25 minutes (a full pomodoro!). This was the second version:

A word coming down from the top
is that agile must not be a flop
   always commanding the peers
   that will lead to many cheers
writing tests that won't pass without any stop

This version was unsatisfactory for everybody (note the shift of the lines on top, as you are used to do in code refactoring!). And the test was red bar: it doesn't rhyme, i.e. it doesn't "compile". I entered the arena so all together we refactored the limerick obtaining what follows:

The rod coming down from the top
is that agile must not be a flop
   so we work every day
   in the "agilist" way
writing tests that won't pass without stop

This was the end of the session, really, really informative. Some questions arised: what happens with a pair of two English natives? Waht if we use a rhyming dictionary, i.e. having a supporting "IDE" for poetry? The answers in the next eXtreme Poetry sessions!

L'Irlanda e Lisbona: cosa deciderà per l'Europa?

Tutta la (lunga) strada dall'aeroporto di Dublino a Limerick, percorsa con uno shuttle, cioè un pullman granturismo, è disseminata di cartelli sul referendum sulla ratifica o meno del Trattato di Lisbona. Noi italiani ne sappiamo qualcosa? Le informazioni ufficiali dicono che il Parlamento europeo sarà più forte e rappresentativo dei cittadini, ma non è su questo che si gioca la campagna del 12 giugno: il fronte del sì ritiene che ci saranno più opportunità per gli irlandesi, il fronte del no teme una perdita di sovranità nazionale.

Un italiano in Irlanda (1)

È bello venire in Irlanda e vedere le scritte bilingue inglese/irlandese in tutti i posti pubblici (indicazioni stradali, aeroporti). In alcuni casi, c'è solo l'irlandese... per esempio sulle auto della polizia, dove c'è scritto garda ma non police. Ma quello che mi ha stupito di più è l'uso dell'italiano come lingua di prestigio, specie nei negozi di vestiti, con le 'solite' marche, ma anche per i posti dove si mangia. In alcuni casi, ci sono neologismi buffi, come ritazza (vedi foto). In generale, gli irlandesi non disdegnano le parole di origine latina e italiana, a differenza degli inglesi. A Linate infatti le indicazioni in lingua inglese sull'aviaria si leggono avian fever, mentre a Dublino avian influenza. Buffo, vero?

Animulae, opera futurista del XXI secolo

Se pensate che non sia più possibile fare avanguardia artistica oggigiorno, andate a leggervi/vedervi/ascoltarvi l'audiovideolibro Animulae, pubblicato (gratis) solo su iTunes Store. Geniale. Con collaboratori d'eccezione.

Prima lezione di esperanto al pub

Ho fatto un esperimento, ho provato a fare una lezione di esperanto al pub Old Fox di Milano, con alcuni amici incuriositi. È stato divertente, per me e credo anche per loro. Per me è stata una novità: ho sempre insegnato esperantologia in Università, ex cathedra, e farlo al pub invece è molto diverso, si imparano molte più cose dagli studenti.

Per chi fosse interessato a imparare una parola di esperanto al giorno, c'è un bel servizio del portale Lernu!, vorto de la tago. Copio e incollo la parola di oggi:

POLUI

Danĝere malpurigi vivesencan elementon de la naturo:

Industriaj fumoj poluas atmosferon.
La urbo estas poluita.
La polua nivelo de la Balta Maro estas aparte alta.
La poleno informas pri la atmosfera poluado.
La polueco en la rivero estas tre granda kaj pro tio fiŝoj ne vivas en ĝi.
Diversaj kemiaj substancoj estas poluaĵoj.
La lago poluiĝis.

--------------------------------------------------
Avete ricevuto questo messaggio perché nel vostro profilo in http://it.lernu.net avete indicato di voler ricevere ogni giorno le "parole del giorno". Si tratta di un servizio speciale di lernu! mediante il quale è possibile leggere quanto contenuto in http://it.lernu.net/tagovortoj/ .

Sarkozy en palindrome

Genial!

La pubblicità con Google AdSense o AdWords a me non paga...

Io e Francesca abbiamo provato a fare un po' di esperimenti con le inserzioni pubblicitarie di Google, grazie a dei bonus che ci hanno dato... Be', non paga. Almeno non per la nostra esperienza. Il rapporto impressioni/clic era ben superiore all'1%, perciò non era un problema 'tecnico', di parole chiave sbagliate o errate impostazioni. Semplicemente attività come la pneumafonia offerte professionalmente come voicecoaching, che non sono dipendenti dal web ma completamente esterne, possono rivelarsi un vero e proprio flop.