It is not about bits, bytes and protocols, but profits, losses and margins

Hello, and welcome to Digiati!

My name is Chris Jones and I am co-founder of Digiati, a small IT solutions company based in the UK. Here at Digiati we are passionate about two things: Building great software and helping you build great software! As you might have noticed, we're working on our new website at the moment and while that is under way, I'd like to introduce you to our blog! Here I will be running a series of posts which explains what it is we're good at and my reasons behind why I think it's good.

So, without further a-do, it's off to the blogosphere...

My first series of posts will be focused on developing a "max-strength" web service suitable for SOA using Microsoft .Net. The theme will be to work through each of the software lifecycle stages from architectural design through to development and testing. I'll talk a lot about Extreme Programming techniques such as Test Driven Development, Refactoring and Agile methodology and I'll also take an in depth look at common patterns and practices which all help to make a solid, scalable, performant web service solution which can power your business.

Whilst a lot of what I talk about will be aimed at developers, the ultimate goal will never change:

Don't get me wrong, I love technology. I love creating stuff. Making it work in the best possible way. Pushing the limits and driving forward. But I also realise that for all companies, IT is there to deliver benefit. I don't believe in technology for technology's sake. If pencil an paper does the job adequately, well that's fine with me. IT is there to increase your companies efficiency, reduce costs, gain competitive advantage or provide new services.

To that end, 'How' we write the code is just as important as 'What' we write. The process of writing code is what your developers will spend most of their time doing be it creating new projects or in more of a maintenance capacity. How the code has been written facilitates how easy it is for your developers to operate and adapt to the ever changing demands of the business. So rather than just spouting posts on technical how-to's, I'll try and explain specifically what it is about the development process that helps your business, and specifically IT costs, as we go along.

This blog will be written based on my personal experiences of building software over the last 15 years or so. I'll make no apologies for expressing my opinion and I welcome any comments, criticisms and the like people may have! It's also going to be pretty informal 'cos what's the point in doing something if you can't have fun at the same time? In the next post I'll get started, at the beginning, with why I think Microsoft provides a fantastic platform in .Net for creating software and how this directly helps your team be better at what they do, almost before they write any code.

Game On. I'm looking forward to this.