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Post Spec - my talk at BarCamp Toronto

Posted on: 2006-05-14

I was at BarCamp Toronto (BarCampTDot) yesterday and had no idea what to expect. The notes said that everyone had to take part, so just in case I put together a short presentation on some agile-style practices that I've found useful lately. After attending a few sessions, I figured what the heck and put my name in for the 7:30 - 9pm slot. I also brought along a bottle of Highland Park 12 Year Old Scotch Whisky as a small bribe. A fair number of people showed up and, although it was really loud in the space and I'm not sure if I could be heard very well, I think things were well received and we had a good (if lubricated) discussion afterwards.

I spoke from notes I put together in OmniOutliner. They're not exactly what I said, but they're pretty close. This is an 'export-to-HTML' with some formatting tweaks.


Introduction

This talk is called POST-SPEC. It's some of my ideas on application development.

Who I am and where I'm coming from.

Thoughts on Specs

Why specs?

The new world of fast and agile development

In fact, now that things are nimble, the failings of having a big up-front spec are more apparent.

A Post-Spec Methodology

Planning

Get it out there as fast as possible

Iterate - this is where the screaming happens

After things slow down - THEN you write your spec.

Then finish your user documentation and refactoring.

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