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Program development is a very creative process and if you are a programmer you should make sure that your environment is as comfortable as possible to enable and support this process. This includes everything from a comfortable chair and enough light at your working place, to a sufficiently powerful computer with easy to use utilities and a development environment that you understand and can use to 100%.

It is really the management’s responsibility to work on this also. The investment in time and attention for the employees needs on these areas and spending some money on equipment will give return of investment.

A programmer could do his or hers duty and produce code as expected, but when he or she move into an enthusiastic and creative flow, it is like shifting to a higher gear. It is much more fun for the programmer and more results are produced. Creativity is precious and should be sought after. Yes, software development is technical and sometimes boring. But we developers are also like an creative artists.

Having the right process control model when you develop software is of great importance. When I look back it seems that many of the projects I have been involved in have been very complex and most of them have had many areas of unpredictability. They have not at all been close to an assembly line. Treating them and controlling them like you would an assembly line would be frustrating and plain wrong. Sometimes projects are like assembly lines, we walk the path we have walked before and we know what will happen. We can predict the road ahead and estimate the time it will take correctly. But most of the times the projects are not like that. We estimate time, but that is just a guess and in the end the developer feels guilty because he could not estimate better.

We live in a fast changing and evolving time and we can only accept it. Requirements will change while we are building and the needs of management and customers will change. There is no time for the technology to settle, but in order to have competitive edge we constantly use bleeding edge technology. Wrong time estimates and unreached goals is not the developers fault. We must have a model that resembles reality.

I have been using the Agile approach for quite some time and lately been looking into Scrum. Scrum is a Process Control Model that fits the above scenario. It describes itself as an empirical model of process control and advocates a paradigm shift from the traditional view of process control modelling.

It is time to write about good music again. This time I would like to mention two favorites …

Capercaillie – Capercaillie (1995)
I have always loved Celtic folk music. The fiddles, the drums, the flutes and the melodies create an atmosphere that it is pure magic. During a period I searched for Celtic groups with a slight contemporary touch and I found the Scottish group Capercaille. They have a jazzy, funky sound and style and are not too much New Age sounding. The female vocalist has a wonderful voice and often sings in Gaelic, their “native language”. On this album the bass player lays down some really evil funky lines. Check out the song: Alasdir Mhic Cholla Ghasda. I have several albums, but this is the one I have listened to the most. Delirium is also quite nice. A fretless bass, with its singing voice, would fit just perfectly in music like this. I am apparently drawn to the borders of music; where jazz meets folk music or jazz meets hip hop or even jazz meets rock. I give them 5 out of 5 as rating.

Courduroy – Dad Man Cat (1992)
Courduroy plays Acid Jazz. The album Dad Man Cat is instrumental, as most of their songs are, and very funky. The bass player, Richard Searle, has a unique way of playing fast and bubbling bass lines. He plays incredibly fast sometimes, but not in the technical and boring way. Have a listen to this group, you might like it. I give this album highest rating also.

Today two books and a DVD from Jamey Aebersold dropped into my mailbox; How To Play Jazz And Improvise, Maiden Voyage and Jazz: Anyone Can Improvise (DVD). Awesome books! I was completely ignorant of Aebersold until a few weeks ago. It looks very promising. I have studied only bass-related material about jazz so far and now I would like to broaden my view. I will get back with a review soon.

For a long time I have had the desire to branch out to play jazz. My present band has a steady flow of rock cover gigs and I do enjoy that and will continue with that. But I want to play jazz also. I listened much to jazz, fusion and funk when I was younger. Weather Report was my favorite. Lately I have explored jazz more and all of its combinations with other genres. I like to listen to the improvisational and unpredictable nature of jazz.

Last summer I decided to start my journey into playing jazz by working through some books of Ed Friedland: Building Walking Bass Lines, Expanding Walking Bass Lines and Jazz Bass. Here comes a brief report.

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Every once in a while I do a quick research for useful utility programs (small helpful programs) that will save me some time. For many of them there is a free version, but it is worth a few dollars to have the registered version. Besides, let’s support those who make useful programs! I have been moving all my programs to a new laptop this week and these are the development utilities that follow me from computer to computer:

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What has been spinning in my mp3-player the last week?

Mandalay – Instinct (2001)
A creative duo, Saul Freeman and Nicola Hitchcock is behind this album in the genre trip-hop/electronica. Like several other trip-hop groups, Lamb for example, the music gravitates around a fragile and intense female voice. Still, they have a unique sound. Most of the songs has beautiful moody melodies full of expression. At times a trumpet visits with a sound that reminds of Nils-Petter Molvaer’s. I absolutely love this album. I give it top rating, 5 out of 5. I will certainly get more cd’s from this group.

Avishai Cohen – Continuo (2006)
I first heard Avishai Cohen at the Stockholm Jazz Festival July 2006. What I heard was a interesting mix of israelian folk music, jazz and classical music with Avishai leading the group on accoustic and electric bass. Surprisingly I could hear traits of swedish folk music in the songs. It reminded me of the well-known swedish jazz-pianist Jan Johansson. Avishai has gained a great reputation in Sweden and visited several times. He performed at Umeå Jazz Festival in October 2006. My youngest son (15) and some of this friends went to the concert. When Albin came home he just walked around in the house and laughed and laughed! He said it was magical! Ahh! I missed that concert. His conversion to jazz became definitive this night and so also for some of his friends. As you can understand I give this album top rating, 5 out of 5

Uriah Heep – The Best Of Uriah Heep (1976)
For some reason I was a bit curious of Uriah Heep. I know they were very famous, but what I heard was not that interesting. I would call it symphonical hard rock with songs that almost never ends. One album was enough of this group and I give it the rating 2 out of 5.