Andy@Gigantiq

While a code base remains small with only a few smart individuals responsible for changes, it can be relatively easy to maintain the architectural qualities. A project does not need to grow by much before the maintainability, flexibility, and modularity of the system can become hard to retain.

The cohesive aspects of an application’s architecture tend to be reflected in its package structure. Analyzing and enforcing package dependencies can be a very useful technique to assist in maintaining the architectural traits. Understanding the package dependencies also assists with understanding the impact of code changes as they occur.

I am a big advocate for automating everything I possibly can. Ensuring code quality is no exception. Over the next few blog entries, I plan to discuss a number of approaches I have encountered for automating the enforcement package dependencies.

JDepend, Japan, and Macker are all tools that can be incorporated into an ant build and be used for enforcing package dependencies. Each of these tools have their pros and cons that I will discuss in detail over the next few postings.

Recently I was wanting to monitor some system statistics on my MacBook and came across a very cool widget called the iStat Pro widget by iSlayer.com. Over the last week or so I have had a number of people ask me about it and so figured I should share the details on my blog for those Mac users who are not already aware of it.

As the screen shot shows, it captures a lot of goodies such as CPU, Memory, uptime, temperature … etc.

Gigantiq are now hiring. We are looking for smart developers who live in Melbourne, Australia. If you are interested in being an integral member of the gigantiq team, check out our web site for further information (www.gigantiq.com).

Recently we spent a bit of time developing the Gigantiq web site. We plan that the content will change frequently and decided that we really need a reasonable Content Management System. Since our hosting company already had built-in support for Joomla which seemed to offer most of the features that we were looking for, it was the logical choice.

As far as a feature set goes, it has lived up to our expectations. In fact it can do a lot more than we actually need. Using an application that has more features than you are ever going to use is not normally a problem unless it means that the simple, common tasks become more difficult as a consequence. Joomla is a classic example of how some simple features in an application can become quite difficult to use as an application grows to be a generic “all things to everyone”.

It is a true art to be able to develop software that keeps the simple things simple and makes complex tasks simple. In most cases the simple things become complex and the complex tasks stay complex. This has certainly been my experience with Joomla.

I think that much of this complexity stems from the “you can do everything from our interface” mentality that many applications seem to adopt. More applications should offer alternative user interfaces to target different types of users. A better approach is to have a simple user interface that targets the 80% of users who will only use the most common features, but the ability to turn on a more advanced user interface to access the more esoteric features of an application. It would be better to offer wizards that make the more complex common tasks simpler.

Perhaps if Joomla had followed some of these ideas then it would not have taken me an hour or more to add my first menu item to the site.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful that I have Joomla as a free CMS, I only wish it offered a simple approach to performing simple tasks. Feel free to bag us at Gigantiq if we forget this simple rule in our own software.

Gigantiq has finally arrived. After many months of hard work and speculation, and years of dreaming we are now in full operation.

The Gigantiq web site is now live and I would like to thank the efforts of Steinbach Oliver for developing a wonderful company logo. In the coming weeks and months the content of the site should grow grow rapidly as we expect Gigantiq to evolve quite quickly.

I know that for me personally begining Gigantiq is the start of something great. It fills me with a great amount of confidence that we will be successful when I mention my plans to my closest friends and collegues and the overwhelming response is one of surprise. Not because I am starting my own IT business, but because it took me so long to actually do it.

Andy.