For questions relating to the process of developing software.
10
votes
3answers
383 views
How to roll out a feature to only a select few users
A good example of what I'm trying to ask about would be Facebook's new Timeline feature. In the beginning, only a select few were allowed access to timeline. As the feature became more solidified in ...
0
votes
1answer
118 views
Choose the Right Software Method for the Job [closed]
What software methodology would you use if the following:
It is a single-man project
It is a small project but could grow fast potentially
Other developers can pick the project up in a later stage
...
0
votes
3answers
251 views
Reinvent the wheel or using the existing wheel? [closed]
I would like to ask something about project management. I got a project that has some requirements, it can be done from scratch with the use of a big framework. Maybe some tools are necessary for some ...
5
votes
6answers
358 views
How to set up a one-man research in the difference between BDD and Waterfall?
Earlier, I asked a question about how to measure the quality of a project. The outcome of that question was that the quality of the project can be divided into two parts:
Internal quality (code ...
6
votes
1answer
334 views
Change Management Standard
Is there any Change Management Standard which is widely accepted in software and other industries? I worked at several companies with absolutely different target domains (investment banking and ...
0
votes
1answer
67 views
How to script the creation & configuration of a portable (vm-based?) Windows 7 dev environment? [closed]
I'm getting a new computer and would like to minimize the time spent configuring and maintaining dev environments on my various machines.
To that end, I'm thinking that creating a vm with my ...
55
votes
18answers
4k views
Completion time on a company where the supervisors don't know programming
We are in a small company with around 10 developers. I am the team leader and responsible for the development process.
Supervisors and salesmen are close to us since we are a small team, but have no ...
5
votes
2answers
140 views
What are approaches for analyzing the cost-benefits of a development methodology?
There are many development practices (TDD, continuous integration, cowboy-coding), principles (SOLID, layers of abstraction, KISS), and processes (RUP, Scrum, XP, Waterfall). I have learned you can't ...
1
vote
1answer
182 views
Project estimates for unreal tasks
I'm a developer in large IT company that is centered around providing services to clients (by that I mean development department is <20 people and not a major part of organisation). I'm solving ...
45
votes
17answers
2k views
Why not write all tests at once when doing TDD?
The Red - Green - Refactor cycle for TDD is well established and accepted. We write one failing unit test and make it pass as simply as possible. What are the benefits to this approach over writing ...
4
votes
5answers
678 views
software for spying on staff? [closed]
I have worked as a junior help desk sys admin, and in those days the only option for "monitoring" what other people was doing was by "shadowing" their screen , like windows remote desktop, RDP.
Now ...
9
votes
7answers
382 views
Should cases be reopened for bugs, or should bugs be opened as a new case?
Currently at my work place we use FogBugz for managing all our features and bugs for our different web applications.
When a new feature is to be added to one of our web applications, a new Case is ...
5
votes
4answers
212 views
Should I include dependencies for which I have the source as projects in my solution?
We have various projects in source control for web and desktop applications. Invariably, many of them use third-party open source projects or even common libraries within our organization as ...
4
votes
1answer
435 views
Real-time collaborative text editing (ie gdocs) - is it a viable software development tool?
"Google Docs" allows for real-time, collaborative document editing. Multiple document viewers are able to simultaneously read and change a document's content so that one user's updates are instantly ...
9
votes
4answers
499 views
How important is knowing functionality before coding?
I work for a software development company where the development work have been off shored to us. The on shore team handle the support and talk directly to the clients. We never talk to the clients ...
1
vote
5answers
528 views
Visual Basic link to SQL output to Word
I am in need of some advice/references. I am currently trying to develop a legal document interface. There are certain fields in which I need to query out of my sql db and have those fields output ...
2
votes
3answers
305 views
Development processes, the use of version control, and unit-testing [closed]
Preface
I've worked at quite a few "flat" organizations in my time. Most of the version control policy/process has been "only commit after it's been tested". We were constantly committing at each ...
1
vote
1answer
284 views
Essential management tools for a small/medium software development shop
I've recently started work with an organisation that is rapidly expanding and is recruiting or growing several development teams (including two web-based products and a data warehouse/BI team). They ...
0
votes
2answers
305 views
How do I share common classes between windows forms and web applications using C#?
In our environment we have multiple ERP servers plus data that are coming from multiple sources. I need to create a development roadmap for the coming years as it is obvious that side applications ...
21
votes
12answers
808 views
What do you do when you feel stuck on a project? [closed]
When I am in a code or design rut, I tend to find a non-dev coworker to discuss the problem with. It forces me to explain the problem in great detail and I'll usually find something I missed in the ...
2
votes
1answer
133 views
Tracking feature requests for small-scale components
I'm curious how other development teams (especially those that work in moderate to large development groups) track "future" features/wishlists for functionality for internally developed frameworks or ...
53
votes
23answers
6k views
What does mathematics have to do with programming?
I just started a diploma in software development. Right now we're starting out with basic Java and such (so right from the bottom you might say) - which is fine, I have no programming experience apart ...
7
votes
11answers
300 views
What is the correlation between the quality of the software development process and the quality of the product? [closed]
I used to believe the practicing "good" software development methods tends to yield a better product in the long run. However, I've seen quite a few cases where "quick-and-dirty" \ "brute-force" \ ...
5
votes
5answers
348 views
How to shift development culture from tech fetish to focusing on simplicity and getting things done? [closed]
Looking for ways to switch team/individual culture from chasing latest fads, patterns, and all kinds of best practices to focusing on finding quickest and simplest solutions and shipping features.
My ...
5
votes
8answers
2k views
Why there is perception that VB.NET is good for small to medium size application and not for enterprise class project? [closed]
I love VB.NET very much. Coding VB.NET with Visual Studio is just like typing messages. Smooth, fast and simple. Any error will be notified instantly. The OO capability of VB.NET is good enough.
But ...
9
votes
9answers
723 views
Does code generation increase the code quality?
Arguing for code generation, I am looking for some examples of ways in which it increases code quality. To clarify what I mean by code generation, I can talk only about a project of mine:
We use XML ...
2
votes
2answers
143 views
Why fork a library for your own application?
Why should a programmer ever fork a library for inclusion in a widely used application?
I ask this question because I was reading an article about why Chromium isn't packaged for many Linux distros ...
8
votes
8answers
559 views
Should developers be involved in testing phases?
we are using a classical V-shaped development process. We then have requirements, architecture, design, implementation, integration tests, system tests and acceptance.
Testers are preparing test cases ...
12
votes
8answers
1k views
What are the biggest bottlenecks when developing large projects?
Let's say that my company was to develop a replica of MS Word (just as an example). What would be the bottleneck to the development process, assuming that one has infinite cash available and an ...
15
votes
13answers
1k views
How To Know When To Stop Testing?
I know this is a very very basic question. For some software applications there are a large almost infinitely high number of test cases for an application. It is not practical to test all those test ...
4
votes
4answers
455 views
Role of “Refactoring” in good programming pratices?
I have learned in Agile Development that:
Refactoring is the process of clarifying and simplifying the design of
existing code, without changing its behavior.
I have heard about some GUI ...
4
votes
2answers
171 views
Should a one person team use a process model?
I am about to start work on my biggest project yet (about 6 months full time work). For previous projects as they were only short I never intentionally used a model, I may have done but I didn't set ...
8
votes
4answers
322 views
What are benefit/drawbacks of classifying defects during a peer code review
About 3 months ago, our engineering group rolled out Review Board to be used for all peer code reviews. Today, I had a discussion with one of the people involved in that process and found out that we ...
7
votes
5answers
223 views
When developing a piece of software, when do you start thinking/designing the concurrent sections?
Following along with the principle of not optimizing too early, I'm wondering at what point in the design / development of a piece of software do you start thinking about the concurrency ...
2
votes
4answers
391 views
How do software development methodologies fit in the field of consulting?
I work for a fairly small consulting company, roughly 100 employees, and I've been with them for about a year currently. This is my first job out of college. As a company we do not specialize in any ...
2
votes
3answers
275 views
How do I make the jump from developing for Android to Windows Phone 7?
I'm planning on making the jump over from developing apps for Android to developing apps for Windows Phone 7 as well. To start, I figured I would port over my simplest app. The code itself isn't much ...
4
votes
3answers
900 views
General checklist before releasing software
I'm currently building a tool that my company intends to sell. I'm the sole developer on the project and it is being developed outside our normal code base and to a certain extent outside our normal ...
2
votes
2answers
169 views
Business/Development Liaison Wanting To Enhance Understanding In Programming
I lead software development for a team of of about 20 devs and we're primarily a .net/sql server shop. We've recently created a new role in our organization for a more business like role to assist in ...
58
votes
27answers
5k views
Why to let / not let developers test their own work
I want to gather some arguments as to why letting a developer testing his/her own work as the last step before the product goes into production is a bad idea, because unfortunately, my place of work ...
4
votes
0answers
297 views
Why there is a testing team? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Why to let / not let developers test their own work
Developers develop the code and software. Ya that means they know very well of what they have done. But why there is ...
17
votes
0answers
1k views
Is cowboy programming a senior approach? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Frankly, do you prefer Cowboy coding?
By cowboy programming, I mean a programmer just typing the code very fast without a semi-formal process.
I have a programmer that ...
13
votes
3answers
376 views
What management/development practices do you change when a team of 1-3 developers grows to 10+?
My team built a website for a client several years ago. The site taffic has been growing very quickly and our client has been asking us to grow our team to fill their maintenance and feature request ...
2
votes
4answers
136 views
What kinds of non-source artifacts are vital to your development process? [closed]
The "classic" development artifacts are requirements documents and design specifications. But the development process includes many other non-source code artifacts: bug tracking databases, emails, ...
7
votes
7answers
2k views
What should you include in a development approach document?
I'm in the middle of co-producing a "development approach" document for off-shore resources as they ramp up onto our project.
The most recent (similar) document our company has used is over 80 pages, ...
2
votes
9answers
645 views
How do you QA and release software quickly with a large team?
My work used to be a smaller team. We had less than 13 devs for a while. We are now growing rapidly, and are over 20 with plans to be over 30 in a few months.
Our process for QA'ing and releasing ...
51
votes
13answers
3k views
How can we reduce downtime at the end of an iteration?
Where I work we practice scrum-driven agile with 3-week iterations. Yes, it'd be nice if the iterations were shorter, but changing that isn't an option at the moment.
At the end of the iteration, I ...
7
votes
2answers
604 views
What is the difference between Acceptance Test-Driven Planning and Acceptance Test-Driven Development?
What is the difference between Acceptance Test--Driven Planning and Acceptance Test--Driven Development? Are they the same?
3
votes
7answers
182 views
How can I work efficiently on a desktop sharing workflow?
I am a freelance Magento developer, based in Spain. One of my clients is a Germany based web development company and they're asking me something I think it's impossible. OK, maybe not impossible but ...
4
votes
2answers
299 views
Is Cleanroom still used on software projects?
Cleanroom is a software engineering process that's often mentioned in textbooks. There was some documented use of the process in the 90s (I believe it was used at the NASA Software Engineering Lab), ...
5
votes
1answer
1k views
What is the difference from the push and pull development models?
I was reading Extreme Programming Explained, Second Edition and in the chapter 11 "The Theory of Constraints" the authors talk about the old and obsolete "push" development model and the XP way, the ...
