Software Experts Summit 2012 schedule

Tuesday 26th June 2012

• System, Heal Thyself

  by Mike Andrews

  As one of the top 10 Web sites, serving millions of queries a day and utilizing hundreds of thousands of servers, the job of keeping Bing.com up and running 24/7/365 with "multiple 9's" availability is no small task. When working at this scale, and speed, one has to rely on software, removing human intervention as much as possible from the equation (and automating everything else). In this keynote, Mike Andrews will talk about some of the systems, tools, and processes that allow Bing to scale and our developers to focus on features over operations and control, as well as some of the lessons learned from running such a site.

  At 9:15am to 10:15am, Tuesday 26th June

• Theory Meets Reality: Managing IT Systems at the Greek Ministry of Finance

  by Diomidis Spinellis

  Many consider the IT systems at the Greek Ministry of Finance to be ideal tools for fighting widespread tax evasion, bureaucracy, fraud, and corruption. Yet making this happen is a battle against protracted procurement processes and implementation schedules, ineffective operations, and rigid management structures. This is a story about guerrilla tactics: simple measures, methods, tools, and techniques that worked. Sadly, it's also a story (still being written) of the limits of such approaches. On balance, it demonstrates that in any large organization there are ample opportunities to bring about change, even against considerable odds.

  At 1:00pm to 1:30pm, Tuesday 26th June

• Technical Debt, Process, and Culture - The Hidden Linkages

  by Michael Feathers

  Quite often, in industry, we look at the accumulation of technical debt as a form of erosion, something that occurs inevitably over the course of time. We talk about refactoring as a remedy, but we rarely address the causes that underlie debt and avoidance of refactoring. In this keynote, Michael Feathers explains how technically aware organizations can alter process and culture to achieve various design and maintainability goals. This approach involves considering that far more influences software development than we often realize.

  At 3:45pm to 4:45pm, Tuesday 26th June