Software Testing Blog

Today, we’re wrapping up with our September ‘Testing the Limits’ with Jack Margo, SVP of Internet Operations at Developer Shed.  If you’re not familiar with them, Developer Shed operates 20+ tech sites — many devoted to open source products, developers and communities.  They serve millions of visitors per month, for every breed of developer or open source project.

Today, we talk about the future of crowdsourcing, whether mobile apps are stealing web apps’ mojo, and who would win in a fight between the Agile methodology and a recession.  Also, Jack causes everyone to look up the word “bifurcated“.  In case you missed it, check out Friday’s part 1 of the interview with Jack.

uTest: This question was recently posed by blogger Andy Beal: “Crowdsourcing is hot now, but will participation fatigue set in?”
J: Sure.  And Facebook is a fad.  And Twitter won’t last 6 months.  I’ve seen crowdsourcing in action… and a good friend of mine, Chuck Lin, has used a site called crowdspring.com to get a ton of great, affordable designs.  People in our industry are motivated by three things – Money, Notoriety and Discover.  Crowdsourcing, by it’s nature, filters out the not-so-good and leaves you with the best ideation that a group of collaborating individuals can provide.  (Editor’s note: we heart crowdSPRING too!)

uTest: Some have suggested that the focus on mobile apps will weaken web applications. Any truth to this, in your opinion?
J: Not at all.  It’s just a different methodology to the build itself, but there are ample developers and specialists to go around.  I’ve not done a lot of mobile application development but the ramp up of something like Objective-C (one of the most crazy languages, in my opinion) is steep for most.  I think you’ll see a convergence when Android and other phones start to offer Flash as a development platform.  The main weakening, if there is one, is mainly from adhoc rules that cell phone manufacturers impose.  Make a phone that can run PHP applications, and you’ll have a ton of web/mobile-app developers.  Likewise, make a website that can run on Objective-C and you’ll get the converse.  It’s one’s chosen discipline, but I definitely do not see a weak web app dev community.  Bifurcated?  Yes.  But not weaker.

uTest: Which development methodology (waterfall, agile, XP, etc) has the brightest future?

If you asked me this question before we hit a recession, I would say agile.  Agile, hands down, wins against any development paradigm as long as you have the core team to support it.  The breakdown comes when you lack the resources to dedicate to both scoping out projects and to get the job done technically… and in a recession headcount is a premium.  Most everywhere I have worked has put in a SDLC, a SDM and other safeguards that work perfectly in a textbook.

In reality, what you get is a good effort towards Agile that ends up in a hybrid Agile-Fall.  It’s like using Agile to know your roadmap, but when the roads are closed, the map fails and time is ticking, every developer I know ends back in some form of waterfall if even just for a week.  The larger the project, the more likely someone is going to have to wait on someone else, and that is what induces waterfall.  Personally, however, I love XP on the development side, especially when you have a developer twin you work with a lot.

uTest: Where did the idea for DevShed come from?
J: I’ve only been with DevShed for 18 months.  The business was actually started in the internet boom probably around the late 90’s.  In around 2001-2002, Jonathan Caputo purchased DevShed.com and several other sites to combine into a developer’s network.  There were others out there, but for the time nothing was as comprehensive across the board and fostered community among developers like DevShed.  In 2007, ZDE and Developer Shed’s networks merged forming a news, review, information and tutorial suite that covers technologists from early programming stages (devshed.com) all the way up to the CEO/CIO levels (cioinsight.com).  Ultimately, it was Caputo’s vision that pulled the disparate community elements together to form the network.  Disclaimer:  Jonathan and I have been friends since we were 13.

uTest: What’s surprised you the most about the collective intelligence of the Dev Shed community?
J: The users of Dev Shed and sites such as aspfree.com and seochat.com are extremely protective of what they consider their community.  Newbies are often ignored or shunned if they are not using proper etiquette (such as don’t ask a question twice, don’t repost, don’t spam).  On the flip side, they often complain about ads, and without the ads we can’t keep resources applied to the network.  So it’s great that they are so loyal and defensive of their turf, and their discussions are extremely enlightening to both the novice and professional, but it works against you as a business when you want/need to expand revenues and the community essentially votes something down.

uTest: How has DevShed succeeded in building such a vibrant community, where others have failed?  What’s your secret?
J: If we gave away the secret, it wouldn’t be a secret…but I would encourage all community-based sites to listen to their users.  We have had times where we have not and paid for it in user loss and general malaise.  Wherever possible, do what the users want.  I’d like to publicly apologize to our users for an incident where we lapsed; earlier this year we had 3 months where the quality of moderation wasn’t what our users were used to.  Part of running a good community is ‘fessing up when you’ve done some wrong.  Overall, I believe we provide our users a stable, interactive and informative forum for their open exchange and our reward is that they stick around.

uTest: What software-related nightmares keep you up at night?
J: I wish it were software only.  Those days are gone, sir.  In my position, I worry about everything from the bottom line of costs/revenue to the project queue all the way down to the legacy code we’re migrating and how long it’s running over.  I think our software situation is pretty stable, thankfully.  We do not have a lot of developers but we do have some world-class talent and the synergies connect up to provide a team that really can do a lot more than each could uniquely.  Aside from constantly worrying about systems failure and being hacked, there’s not a lot of nightmares.

uTest: What’s next for DevShed?  What do you look like in 2012?
J: DevShed is currently working on a couple of new ideas that will bring in a different audience.  We currently focus on the developer who comes to the site for information on a specific topic but either join or don’t join the community.  I think you’ll see more interactive products and newer categories before 2012.  That’s what’s really the great thing about having a site that deals in information – the only thing that changes are the topics.  The cornerstones of what we have as a community will continue to ebb and flow over the years, but if the past 5 have been any indicator, the next 5 will be just as active from a community standpoint.

Thanks to Jack for sharing his wit and wisdom on a wide range of topics.  From a selfish perspective, it’s very cool to see other communities thriving in other categories — and meet the people who help to shape and grow those crowds.  Agree/disagree with any of Jack’s thoughts on community, dev methodologies, or scary software stories?