Writing estimates up-front is a really tricky part of client work.
From the customer’s point of view it’s pretty essential. You need to know how much you are spending before the work begins so you don’t get stung.
From the developer’s point of view it’s pretty difficult to do because [...]

Recently I’ve been playing around with Balsamiq Mockups. This is an application that lets you chuck screen designs (for web pages, desktop applications or iPhone applications) together very simply and quickly.
The UI is pretty straightforward – create a screen, select some controls (via drag/drop or by typing in a name) and [...]

I’ve been a fan of Basecamp for years.  Ever since I heard about it (all the way back in 2005) I’ve encouraged its use whenever possible.  It has pretty much become the de-facto standard for web-developers across the world.  Part of its appeal is its unstructured nature – it’s basically a series of messages with [...]

The launch of isitruby1.9.com is exciting for a couple of reasons.  The obvious reasons are that this is something that we, as Ruby developers, needed.  It gets the Brightbox name out there.   And it’s also nice to get people together and give something to “the community”.  
But personally, what I like best about it, is that the entire [...]

Any web-developer Rubyist knows about models, views and controllers. The MVC paradigm is embedded in the structure of Rails and Merb and encouraged by Ramaze and Sinatra. If you’re a Mac developer or an iPhone bod then MVC is common practice there as well. Same goes for Sproutcore and even Microsoft is [...]

I think Cucumber is fast becoming indispensable for my testing. The point of it is that you can write documentation that your client understands and then prove that the application does what it says. When coupled with WATIR you can show that it really works in an actual browser – you can even [...]

I’m sure you’ve all heard the Rails 3 announcement. When I first found out my initial reaction was “fuck me“. But shortly after I was filled with a feeling of dread and general unease. And I didn’t know why ….
Firstly, a bit of history.
I first tried programming on a Commodore [...]

I’ve recently been updating some old code – partly written by someone else, partly written by myself. At the time, I thought I had written this code really well; looking back on it now, it looks awful. Fair enough, I’ve learnt a lot – I want to look back on old code and [...]

There seems to be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth about the upcoming VAT change. Especially as it is only a 13 month change and the rate will revert to 17.5% in 2010.
However, it ought to be really simple (although I realise that this may be a bit late for [...]

I’ve written up a new post at the Brightbox blog detailing how we are using RSpec and Cucumber to build acceptance tests for the next generation Brightbox systems.