Recent Blog Posts

  • My Clutter is Different
    By Johanna Rothman - Friday Jul, 4
    On the long weekends, Mark and I make a concerted effort to clean up the house. That means I have to address all my little piles: go through them, recycle what I can, throw out what can’t be rec... more »
  • New Tools Section
    By Ryan Shriver - Thursday Jul, 3
    One of the things that helps reenforce new concepts, like the ones I���m teaching, are simple tools that guide you along the way. Like a carpenter���s square, hand plane or ruler, simple tools can be ... more »
  • It’s ok to wet yourself every once in awhile
    By Andrew Glover - Tuesday Jul, 1
    Dan North, the veritable progenitor of behavior driven development (or BDD), recently blogged about unnecessary DRYness (meaning don’t repeat yourself) with respect to clarity of intent when it ... more »
  • Expert Panel at Agile Experience
    By Neal Ford - Tuesday Jul, 1
    Last weekend, I spoke at the Agile Experience in Reston. It was a great conference, lots of interesting topics, and a different crowd than most technical conferences. Half the attendees were managers,... more »
  • easyb 0.9 hits the streets
    By Andrew Glover - Monday Jun, 30
    The easyb team is pleased to announce the release of easyb 0.9, baby! The 0.9 release has: Numerous IntelliJ plug-in improvements The easyb plugin for IntelliJ can now be downloaded directly from w... more »

In the Spotlight - Chris D'Agostino

Chris D'Agostino is the founder and CEO of Near Infinity

Chris D'Agostino is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Near Infinity Corporation. Chris formed Near Infinity in 2002 with the goal of establishing a place where engineers could focus on solving some of industry's most challenging problems. Chris' vision for Near Infinity is to build a company that truly changes the way its clients build software, and he believes that Near Infinity employees represent some of the best minds in the industry. As CEO, Chris oversees daily operations and sets the strategic direction of the company. He is a firm believer in leading by example, and is committed to leveraging technology to help run an efficient, fun, and friendly company.

Chris has over 20 years of technical experience in the industry. He began his career with TRW as a Systems Engineer working on government contracts for the Department of Defense and the Department of State. Chris held several technical leadership positions and focused on local and wide area network (LAN/WAN) design and implementation. In 1998, he began developing C and Java applications for a small technology company in Washington, D.C.

Chris holds both a B.S. and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech. He has served as an adjunct professor for the University of Virginia and taught courses in server-side Java.













Presentations by Chris D'Agostino

Open source software versus COTS

There is a lot of debate over the use of open source software compared
to buying COTS. While the cost of open source may be appealing, the
level of skill needed to integrate disparate open source products and
the technical support available might make selecting a well-designed,
well-supported COTS solution a better choice.

Refactor Your Developers

The benefits associated with having your development staff exposed to
multiple languages, even if they deploy applications in one primary
language, are enormous. New languages expose developers to new ways of
thinking about software and highlight the pain points of your current
technology stack. It forces organizations to move outside their
comfort zone in an effort to deliver robust applications quickly.

Agile for the Real World

So your organization's strategic IT direction is to use Agile, but word is it's just a fad, and anyway, using Agile means that your project is going to be filled with undisciplined, unplanned, unpredictable development...right? Just the opposite. Walk away from this presentation with field-tested tips, lessons learned, and case studies on using Agile to deploy high-quality software that your customers actually need and use.