FacesTrace is a JSF component that allows developers to have visibility into the JSF request lifecycle. It also provides some timing information as well as the ability to view the information stored at the different JSF scope levels. Here is a screenshot (among others) from the project's web site:

Thanks to FacesTrace, I was able to track down the root cause of a problem I worked on for the better part of last week. It was a simple matter of tweaking some code once FacesTrace identified what phase was failing and what it was failing on.

You will need to add the following tag library definition to your application (and it's web.xml) if you are using Facelets:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<!DOCTYPE facelet-taglib PUBLIC "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD Facelet Taglib 1.0//EN"

"facelet-taglib_1_0.dtd">

<facelet-taglib>

<namespace>http://sourceforge.net/projects/facestrace

<tag>

    <tag-name>trace

    <component>

        <component-type>net.sf.facestrace.component.Trace

    </component>

</tag>

</facelet-taglib>

Once it is in place, you can add the namespace to the root element of your facelets document and add an <ft:trace /> tag somewhere on the page.

function my_prompt() {

   # Determines whether the previous command succeeded...

   if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then

      result="1;32m:)"

   else

      result="1;31m:("

   fi

   pwd_length=20

   DIR=`pwd`

   echo $DIR | grep "^$HOME" >> /dev/null

   if [ $? -eq 0 ]

   then<

      CURRDIR=`echo $DIR | awk -F$HOME '{print $2}'`

      newPWD="~$CURRDIR"

      if [ $(echo -n $newPWD | wc -c | tr -d " ") -gt $pwd_length ]

      then

         newPWD="~/..$(echo -n $PWD | sed -e "s/.*\(.\{$pwd_length\}\)/\1/")"

      fi

   elif [ "$DIR" = "$HOME" ]

   then

      newPWD="~"

   elif [ $(echo -n $PWD | wc -c | tr -d " ") -gt $pwd_length ]

   then

      newPWD="..$(echo -n $PWD | sed -e "s/.*\(.\{$pwd_length\}\)/\1/")"

   else

      newPWD="$(echo -n $PWD)"

   fi

}

export PROMPT_COMMAND=my_prompt

PS1='33[1;30m\[33]2;\u@\h:${newPWD}\a\]\

[\u@\h ${newPWD}]\n33[${result} 33[1;30m\$ 33[0;39m'

As a result, this is what I now see in my terminal windows when things go well:

[fjean@voyager ~]:) $

And when things go bad:

[fjean@voyager ~/..ojects/yagrails-test]:( $

I have configured my work system and my PowerBook to use the new prompt. I have also added a few other tricks to my work desktop (such as setting the terminal window's title based on where I am in my file system).

Note: I did try to convey the colors, but it appears that Ecto and Wordpress conspired to strip them away… I'll keep trying though…

Now, what does this childhood story has to do with agile development? I think of agile methodologies such as Scrum and XP as training wheels for teams and developers. The goal is to teach good habits and provide guidance and support as the team and its developers mature and gain experience. As they move forward, the methods, practices and dictums associated with the Agile methodologies become ingrained and the team is (hopefully) able to adapt them to their situation. They begin to ride the big kid bike.

Sometimes though, businesses, teams and even developers want to go straight to the end result of Agile development. They want the benefits associated with being an agile team without the discipline and structure that comes from following one of the many flavors of Agile development. They don't want the training wheels, they want to go straight to the big kid bike. Sometime they succeed, but often they don't.

Thankfully, OpenLogic is committed to being an agile company. We are implementing Scrum and are adopting more agile practices and methods as time goes by. We did have our own falls and scraped knees. We were able to look back, identify where we fell short and remedy the situation. Today, we have our product owner and other stake-holders attending our stand up meetings, we do put time into writing both acceptance and automated unit tests for our stories. We also pay close attention to our velocity, which we then use to adjust our tasks estimates.

In many ways, we still have our training wheels. But we are getting better at it. With a little time and practice we may one day be ready to get rid of them though.

[Originally published on Out of My Mind... Reproduced with my own permission.]

[posted with ecto]