Five for Friday – October 4, 2019

I recently re-read (skimmed) Steve McConnell’s Software Estimation, Demystifying the Black Art. When I met with Microsoft Press to pitch HWTSAM, they gave a hot-off-the press new copy, and while some of the book feels “old school”, it’s still filled with foundational estimation knowledge.
I work at home, and absolutely need a quiet PC – my old power supply was acting up, so I picked up a Corsair HXI 750 – not only is it quiet, it’s so quiet that there’s a button on the power supply to manually spin up the fan in case you’re wondering if it’s working.
One of the cool things with the Corsair is that it plugs into an open USB interface on the motherboard (or, if you must, you can run a cable outside the box to an external port) in order to read temperature and load levels. Of course, their app is windows only, but there’s a nice command line app for viewing and controlling the drive on github.
One reason for WiP (work in progress) limits is to reduce multi-tasking. Another is to make sure we finish things so we can get feedback. This article – The Cost of Waiting for Feedback in Software Development talks about why.
No intro needed – Agile vs. Lean – Explained by Cats