Scrum

I have been working for RealNetworks, Inc. since May 19, 2008. I work in a development wing. They follow scrum. This is my quick effort to clear my understanding about scrum.

What is scrum

• Part of Agile
• An iterative process
• Management of SW Development Process

Why? The vocabularies

• 'Sequential approach' was predominant. It's like 'relay-race', handing over the baton to the next person.
• It's better to have 'rugby', where team works as an unit, passes the ball back and forth, and achieves the result.
• The term 'Scrum' came from a term in rugby.
• Each iteration is called 'sprint'. Can be 15-30 days' cycle.
• 'potential shippable'
• 'product backlog'
• 'sprint planning meeting'

Roles

• 'Pig' roles - fully dedicated
• --- There is a 'ScrumMaster' role who plays the PM role, and maintains the process.
• --- There is a 'Product Owner' role who represents the stakeholders.
• --- There is a 'Team' role who represents the developers.
• 'Chicken' roles - outside scrum team
• --- Users
• --- Managers
• - Stakeholders

Reference

• TBD
  

Java Externalizable

Background

• Interface: java.io.Externalizable
• Super Interface: Serializable
• Used to control how you want to do serialization (read/write)
• Scenario: Some of the fields may not worthy of writing, or the format needs to be changed etc.
• transient keyword simply instructs JVM not to read/write a variable, one at a time.
• With Externalization, you can control all variables in one place.
• During de-externalization, the default constructor will be called. Then readExternal(...) will be called.
  

Java Methods

• readExternal(ObjectInput in)
• writeExternal(ObjectOutput output)
  

Link

1. http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-6159276.html

Java Prefernece

Java Preference

• Introduced in JDK1.4
• Acts like Windows Registry
• Stores objects in a tree-like structure; items reside on nodes as key-value pair
• Can be exported/imported to/from XML
• A replacement option for JNDI/LDAP; but you don't need a server
• A replacement for properties files also

Links

1. http://www.javapractices.com/topic/TopicAction.do?Id=155
2. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/java/library/j-prefapi.html
3. http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-08-2001/jw-0831-preferences.html?page=1