Since it’s inception almost two years ago, I’ve been writing the Agile Developer column for the Agile Journal. Shortly thereafter, I started the Agile Junction blog. While I’ve continued to write the column, I haven’t posted a blog entry in damn near a year. In my new role as Online Editor over at Agile Journal, I’ll be turning my attention toward managing all types of on-line content. Hopefully, that means more blogging, but it definitely means more activity surrounding other forms of on-line content. Thankfully, Liz will still be serving as Editor-In-Chief of the Agile Journal monthly publication. In the next few months, there are going to be some exciting changes taking place at Agile Journal. Be sure to check it out.

Quite a few moons ago, I interviewed a gentleman working for a CASE tool vendor. They had just shutdown one of their development shops, and employees had two choices. Find another job, or be relocated. This chap decided to go searching, and our paths crossed. It didn’t take long for me to get way off track with my questions, and eventually I point-blank asked him if they used their own CASE tool on internal development projects. He said “no”, and then nervously suggested that we get the interview back on track. I can’t recall if we ended up hiring the guy, but that interview left an indelible impression and taught an important lesson. If the guy who developed the software doesn’t use it, then you shouldn’t use it. How many open source projects do you think are created where the authors have never used the tool or framework? I’m guessing very few. How many product companies develop products that they don’t use internally? I’m guessing quite a few.

It’s a pretty simple question to ask the next tool vendor trying to sell you their product. If they say yes, then ask them what they like and dislike about the tool. Their honesty is apparent.

The Greater Wisconsin Software Symposium marks the kick-off of the 2008 No Fluff Just Stuff Software Symposiums. The session schedule looks amazing. Traditional sessions on good ole J2EE are still aplenty, but there is also a lot of exciting content surrounding Groovy and Grails, DSLs, Ruby and Rails, Ajax, and agile development that keep things out there on the edge. I’d encourage everyone to attend Sunday’s session on OSGi, which arguably is the most important technology you’ve never heard of - possibly even technology of the decade.

And after a couple months off the tour, you can rest assured that their will be a special energy brought to the conference as it kicks off this year’s tour. Be sure to check it out.