simondelliott

Computer architecture?

What is the difference  between an architect and a programmer?

The metaphore of considering a large system to be a building a very close, and extremely accurate simile. However real architects have spent many thousands of years defining and expanding their craft, but in essence a computer architect is performing the same role as building architect, it just that all his or her tools are only 30 years old.

Gaudi did not know how to fire a brick or join a staircase.
Burnell did not know how to weld a joint or lift an key stone
Eiffel did not know how to roll an RSJ or pin a steel plate.

They designed using abstraction, and the forms they designed are a meta abstraction on the skills of the craftsmen that made them. Computer architecture is the meta design above the logic of coding, integration and configuration. Programmers and script kiddies are artisans rather than architects. The currency of the architect is form and function. The architect has to trust the artisan to implement his or her vision.

Using a Wiki to create a bid responce

A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, is one of the best-known wikis. Wikis are used in business to provide intranets and Knowledge Management systems.

When you read some ITT response documents you can see the joins,
i.e. you can see the writing style change when you look at the deferent sections

This is because the bid manager breaks up the response into chunks and allocates a team member to each chunk. The team member then works independently on the chunk. And if you are traveling fast then sometimes its last minuet … the cracks never get pasted over.

I am looking for a better way to create a response document and I think a wiki could be it.

Instead of breaking it up into chunks the bid manager creates a frame work in a wiki, all the team members have visibility of the whole response all the time, they can make changes to any part of the doc.

Bada bing – you have your response doc at the end of the process. It then goes to a graphic designer so that the copy can be typeset.

This is better because

1 Ditch the baton method
Or the “you do your bit” method, which creates a culture of “ive done my bit” rather than “what’s next to-do?”

2 Visibility of everyone  else’s style
When working on the doc you will be able to see what has gone before, this is the first step on the road to getting the writing style in sync.

3 Abstraction of content from presentation

This is the biggest problem with the old word and powerpoint  tool set. Loads of effort is spent mucking round with tables, merging documents, getting the bullet formats right. Content authors should not be concerned with this, they should just say … here is bullet points … here is a diagram. The formatting should be done by the professional type setter, if the content is designed using a wiki then you can export to word/pdf etc and then apply formatting.

4 collaboration with the customer
If you have the response as a wiki, why not share it with your customer? They can make comments directly, they could even be involved in the design and editing process.

5 vitalizing the team

This style of collaboration tool is awesome when you have a virtual team, it will give you a real advantage over your competitors, you can bring people in and out of the fast, and you can get the most from them when they are there.

Integrating information systems in a corporation

Have you ever tried to get everyone using the same information system, are you wondering why its so hard?

This is why,

1. Different regions will refuse to use the corporate backed solution, for almost any reason they can find.
2. Different development groups will chose to hide their systems rather than spend time learning/migrating to the corporate solution, because they dont want to give up their indipendance
3. Systems that may have started as small information repositories will have organically grown, and had turned into business critical systems, to replace them with the corporate information solution is just too risky
4. Acquisition of new business will caused dilution as the new units existing information systems will be too expensive to change.
5. Multi language content (and character sets) will cause issues during migration leading to the previous system remaining in place.

Just like King Canute you cant hold back the tide. Give up and instead implement and publicise a search facility that provides a single place to go to find content rather than have a sing place to go to author content.

How to make the most of your enterprise wiki

Top tips and tricks for the for the new wiki user

So you’ve installed a wiki in your company and some people love it but other don’t … dont worry here are some tips and tricks to get you going.

1. You may wonder why people are not visiting your project or team wiki, use the news or blogging feature to keep people coming back.
2. Make it look great, make your wiki look better than the other ones at your company, If you can afford it hire a graphic designer to do it for you.
3. If you want to author content quickly ditch the rich text editor – use the wiki markup instead, its really easy and much faster.
4. If you want to bring a team together quickly – create a new wiki for them
5. Once you have a wiki for your team, create a blog, get some discussion going
6. If you see a page you like, open it, look at the markup and copy it
7. Use pictures to emphasise points
8. look on the web – there are literally millions of how to articles
9. If you cant do it then someone has made a plugin that will
10. Instead of emailing the content, send a link and ask for them to add comments to the page
11. Leave empty links in your content so that others can help fill out the content

remember, some people just dont like collaborative working … try and support them, but dont give in.

How to generate ideas

All you need is one piece of paper, your favorite cafe, a pencil and a lack of inhibitions

Often I am asked to think up a few ides on a specific topic, or to come up with a new architecture for a product.

This can be really difficult, especially when you have to get somthing quick. Here is one of the methods that I use to do this I call it an Ideas sheet.

The process is straight forward,

1. get out of the office … find a cafe, park, street corner any where that is comfortable that you are in control of any interuptions.
2. get a blank piece of paper,
3. Clear your mind for a while
4. Think about the essence of what is being asked for,
   who is it for?
   why is it fun?
   what is so great about it?
5. When you get an idea write it down on the paper, if words are too restrictive … then draw a picture.
6. Now try to completely forget the last idea, turn the page up side down so that you cant read it. or place another piece of paper on to of it.
7. Go back to thinking of the essence of the issue or what you want to make, when you get an idea .. repeat.
8. Now just keep going till the paper is full
9. If you spend more than an hour on this then give up, try again another day.

As you can see this often makes some funny ideas. Which are all good. When you come to discuss the ideas with your collegues they can all have a good laugh, which really helps with making the job fun.