Comments for Allen Holub

Comment on Don’t track bugs, fix them by Eduard Popescu

Eduard Popescu — Sat, 18 Oct 2025 12:48:11 +0000

Maybe it helps to look at bugs from a different angle. A bug is just a kind of debt – something we still owe to our customers from a story or feature we’ve already delivered. We just didn’t realize at the time that there was still work to be done. It’s like a chef serving a dish that’s missing an ingredient – the guest is the one who notices and brings it back. Seen this way, a bug isn’t a separate problem but unfinished work from the original story. So it makes sense to treat it as the most urgent kind of work: you haven’t really finished until that story does what it was supposed to do. Everything else, new features, shiny improvements, can wait until you’ve finished the meal you already served.

Comment on Training is expensive (Not)! by Allen Holub

Allen Holub — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 18:25:13 +0000

In reply to Earle Jennings.

Hi Earle. As with all consulting projects, the best way for me to understand how I can help is for you to set up a chat at https://holub.com/chat. (This link is not for consulting work. For short-term consulting see https://holub.com/mentoring.)

Comment on #NoEstimates, An Introduction. by gws

gws — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 16:04:31 +0000

In reply to Allen Holub.

“If you have to ask, it’s too expensive.”

Comment on Training is expensive (Not)! by Earle Jennings

Earle Jennings — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 03:44:18 +0000

Hello, I would like to work through the software attachment to your book. I am interested in working with you and this book’s materials as a component in several fpga research projects. I have ordered a used copy of your book, because putting a pdf file as a download was very gracious. The load on the printer for a 900+ page book seemed a bit much. Please make it available.
Once I have spent some time with it. I would like to discuss your compensation.
Earle Jennings CTO QSigma, Inc. (510) 292 8328, 305 Calle Estado, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Please send me an email with the link to the download when it becomes available

Comment on #NoAccountability by Allen Holub

Allen Holub — Tue, 14 Jan 2025 00:23:47 +0000

In reply to Bruce Eckel.

Hi Bruce! See Larman’s Law.

Comment on #NoAccountability by Tim

Tim — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 10:25:29 +0000

No, I think accountable means the same thing in other English speaking countries – it has the same connotation of punishment for not meeting arbitrary, dysfunctional metrics.

As the saying goes, if companies can’t measure what’s important (because the important is more nuanced that a value between zero and X) they often end up making important what they can measure, e.g. velocity.

Comment on Heuristics for Effective Software Development Organizations: A continuously evolving list.* by Martin

Martin — Tue, 01 Oct 2024 10:53:07 +0000

I just love it Allen, so well phrased and captures the essence of how sw development should be done. The only downside is when you see this in practice once it is impossible to go back and do what 99% of tech companies do

Comment on #NoAccountability by Mark K

Mark K — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 01:15:52 +0000

Food for thought. In the video of Nia Dennis, she is the only one performing, while her entire team is on the side observing and cheering. I think a common cultural pitfall in software development, if the idea that everyone must be performing individually at all times. I work on a fully remote team, and due to timezones and different areas of specialization, it is often difficult to get the whole team in a meeting together. Even pair programming can be a challenge to coordinate. I still believe that remote working can be a great thing, but I don’t feel the tools for collaboration have evolved far enough yet. For that reason, I think it’s doubly important to rely on trust of each other than fall into accountability and responsibility, but there are certainly more challenges involved.

Comment on Don’t track bugs, fix them by Allen Holub

Allen Holub — Sat, 04 May 2024 01:55:55 +0000

In reply to Aron.

It’s a process, though. Doesn’t lend itself to a blog post :-). My approach generally is to put no logic into the UI at all. That way I can simulate the outermost (view, if you will) layer and use TDD to build all the code that does anything. Then I build the front end and use a back-end simulator to test it. That last step is mostly manual testing, but there isn’t much to test.

Comment on Don’t track bugs, fix them by Aron

Aron — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 17:14:17 +0000

I am still waiting for some of these TDD warriors like yourself to show me their TDD process for writing sophisticated UI and devops code. Not that it’s not possible, I did it a few times, so it’s definitely possible. I am just curious how you do it if you do it at all.
I definitely don’t see big corps paying a lot of money to do all of that.