Dirk Riehle's Industry and Research Publications

Category: 2. Building Products

  • Tabs vs. spaces and cause vs. effect

    Tabs vs. spaces and cause vs. effect

    Stack Overflow of the “full stackoverflow programmer” fame just published a developer survey. Among the items was a question asking developers, what they prefer for indenting their code: Tabs or spaces? The majority of developers prefers tabs over spaces by a reasonable margin. What worries me, though, is the conclusion or the “trend” that the…

  • Inner source in platform-based product engineering [Technical Report]

    Inner source in platform-based product engineering [Technical Report]

    Abstract Inner source is an approach to collaboration across intra-organizational boundaries for the creation of shared reusable assets. Prior project reports on inner source suggest improved code reuse and better knowledge sharing. Using a multiple-case case study research approach, we analyze the problems that three major software development organizations were facing in their platform-based product…

  • M.B.A.s or engineers for product management?

    M.B.A.s or engineers for product management?

    I teach product management at a public German engineering school, where I am a professor of computer science. Product management is my nod towards “business informatics”, otherwise I only teach engineering courses (and one general how-to-perform-research class). There is an old debate as to who makes better product managers: M.B.A.s or engineers? Having worked on…

  • Public upcoming talks on open source and inner source

    Public upcoming talks on open source and inner source

    A bit belated, I’m happy to announce two upcoming talks: Both talks are accessible to the public, see the flyers.

  • Hackathons and 20% time

    Hackathons and 20% time

    According to this article, Google’s 20% time never really existed. I’ve always guessed as much, joking with Google friends that their 20% time really could only be taken on Saturday and Sunday. Which is all the same: Engaged employees do what they feel needs to be done no matter what and when. Hackathons, however, exist.…

  • Which design patterns should be retired? (In defense of singleton)

    Which design patterns should be retired? (In defense of singleton)

    Addison-Wesley asked the patterns community (or at least those who were there at the beginning) about their opinion on various issues. This is the second post of what should have been three (though I probably will only get to the first two). For this very specific question, I expect everyone to say: Retire Singleton! I…