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Pair Programming: When and Why it Works

Just stumbled upon this StanfordU paper about ongoing research on the When and Why of Pair Programming (one of the practices of XP):

PairProgramming-WhenWhy.pdf (application/pdf Object)

My personal, not scientifically backed opinion on the matter is that Pair Programming is probably one of the more dispensable practices of XP. Reason: Meanwhile (since the bloom of XP in 1999), there are a couple of other, probably more efficient and certainly more flexible ways of quick and easy programmer2programmer communication like instant messaging, Skype, SIP/VoIP, video messaging, IRC/chatting, collaborative editors. These are potentially less disruptive/disturbing, enabling more concentrated functioning while ensuring an equal or even better communication (due to the higher specificity in peer selection and the availability of both synchronous and asynchronous communication). Besides, the number one communication media should be reading and writing the source code itself (eventually through an editor with on-demand collaborative editing support).

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“Reverse roadmap order” patch for Trac

If you prefer a descending order (like in changelogs, blogs, etc.) for milestones in roadmaps instead of an ascending one (= default), you might want to apply my tiny patch:

Roadmap.py.patch

It applies to Roadmap.py of Trac 0.8.4 (see ‘locate Roadmap.py’).

Note that this patch both sets a reverse chronological and a reverse alphabetical order for milestones. Like this, you can name your milestones like versions (e.g. “0.2”, “0.4” .. “1.0”) and they will still appear in reverse order (even if they don’t have any associated dates).

If you want a reverse chronological only order (while keeping an ascending alphabetical order), set “name” instead of “name DESC” in the SQL statements of Roadmap.py.

Note that iCal will not be affected by the display order of the items on Trac.

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“Deny project listing” patch for Trac

If you’d like to disable the project listing (“Available projects”) in Trac 0.8.4 when using mod_python (highly recommended as it greatly improves Trac’s responsiveness), you might want to use my tiny patch:

ModPythonHandler.py.patch

Apply it by executing

# patch

in Trac’s source code directory (see the result of ‘locate Changeset.py’). On Gentoo, the directory is /usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/trac/. Note that you don’t need this patch if you’re using the current trunk version of Trac (at the time of writing). In trunk, you can define your own custom template for the project listing.

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Contextual advertising on the web

An interesting study: Routes to success for consumer magazine websites (PDF) (Reuters)

Most sites have gained new advertisers on the web who do not advertise in the print products.
The proportion has risen from 53% in 2003 to 66% in 2005.
The web-only advertisers are attracted by a range of factors. These include the interactive
possibilities, the ability to receive sales leads or direct response, the size of the audiences
available, the new/different audiences on offer, and the measurability of the internet audience.
Speed of delivery and updating is another attractive feature.
20% of the sites offer contextual advertising – that is, relating the ads shown on-screen to the
keywords that surfers employ when using search engines.

Contextual advertising obviously gains popularity among advertisers.

(via Rogers Blog)

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The meaning of blogs..

..or rather one of the meanings of weblogs:

WSJ: Marketers Scan Blogs For Brand Insights
Slashdot: Marketers Scan Blogs For Brand Insights

A note about the importance of mouth-to-mouth advertising, with blogs being one of its incarnations on the Internet:

NOTRE DAME USA — Ob ein Kinofilm zum Kassenschlager wird, hängt davon ab, was die Besucher der ersten Vorstellungen darüber erzählen. Das zeigte ein US-Physiker anhand eines mathematischen Modells, mit dem er den Erfolg von 44 Kinostreifen untersuchte. Demnach kann die Mundpropaganda die Besucherzahlen langfristig stärker beeinflussen als das Marketing oder die Grösse des Publikums, das ursprünglich mit dem Film angesprochen werden sollte. (Sonntagszeitung p. 81, June 19, 2005)

In English:
“Nature” article: Modellers measure ‘word of mouth’ for films
Original paper: The effect of social interactions in the primary life cycle of motion pictures

Currently, many companies are discovering blogs as an important medium to get in contact with customers and opinion leaders. And more and more consumers realize that they can actually have an impact on products and influence companies – through blogging.

In fact, blogs are “just” the beginning.. stay tuned for more information.

[Update: Related news: “The first-ever conference on measurement, metrics and standards in word of mouth marketing” organized by womma – the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (I doubt it’s the “first-ever”, though ;)]