development lifecycles
Articles
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Automatic Metrics: Turn Down the Volume and Increase Awareness Linda Hayes has always found software development metrics to be problematic. The data either skews perceptions of the project or the actions of the team members. In this article, Linda explains that by turning down the volume of what is being said and measured and simply watching what is actually happening, you can strip away the assumptions and biases that often obscure the truth. |
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Interoperate or Integrate Most of the organizations in today's world have some legacy software or systems. With pressures coming from outsourcing and cost-cutting, new applications are constantly being added to existing IT frameworks. In most cases, it is risky to completely replace the existing systems. As a result, most places have complex applications and systems frameworks. In order to achieve a successful coexistence of several applications on different platforms and technology architecture, teams are faced with some major questions, such as "Should we interoperate or integrate?" |
Ipsita Chatterjee
August 14, 2007 |
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Test Notes and Coverage Maps--Aids for Rapid Testing As delivery cycles get shorter, rapid test techniques are gaining in popularity. In this article, Sridhar Kasibhatla and Andrew Robins explore the concept of using coverage maps and test notes to support exploratory testing and concurrent test design. These maps and test notes also are used to review and track test coverage and can help document dynamically generated test cases for future re-use. |
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What Is the Cost of a Requirement Error? This paper presents a simple, practical calculation of the cost of requirements errors in application software development projects. It also recommends a way to find and fix these costly errors early in a project, when they are least expensive to correct. |
Joe Marasco
June 26, 2007 |
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Test Software before You Code Testing doesn't have to begin after the code has been written. In this column, Jeff Patton resurrects the oldest and most overlooked development technique, which can be used to test a product before any piece of it materializes. |
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Feature-Driven Development: An Agile Alternative to Extreme Programming Feature-driven development (FDD) has the more traditional progression of a systems-engineering life cycle mode as compared to agile methods. It uses distinct phases in its iterations while still being highly iterative and collaborative. FDD does conduct up-front planning, design and documentation and relies very heavily upon domain modeling. |
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How to Merge XML Data with a Database In his article "Data Crunching Tips and Techniques," Greg Wilson taught us how to translate legacy data into XML. In the second half, he explains how to merge new data into an existing database. Developers will always face these types of data crunching problems, and knowing the standard data crunching tools can save you a lot of time. Greg also shares the basic knowledge about relational databases that every developer should possess. |
Greg Wilson
April 6, 2006 |
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Data Crunching Tips and Techniques Data crunching is probably the least glamorous part of our jobs, but it has to be done. Someone will always need to recycle legacy code, translate files from one vendor's proprietary binary format into XML, check the integrity of configuration files, or search Web logs to see how many people have downloaded the latest release of the product. Knowing how to compile this data with the least amount of effort can be crucial to a project's success or failure. In this week's column, Greg Wilson looks at some of the existing tools and techniques used to crunch data more efficiently and productively. |
Greg Wilson
February 22, 2006 |
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Finish on Time by Managing Scale When deciding how a user's task is to be supported in our software, we often look at possible design solutions and select one that's best for the product and the user. As the project deadline approaches, however, we might choose to dismiss some features outright. In this column, Jeff Patton suggests we try keeping more features by adjusting their scale. |
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Interface or Interfere? One of the Holy Grails of automated quality toolsets is a fully integrated suite that seamlessly tracks the process all the way from requirements to test cases and on through to defect tracking. This fully integrated suite makes for a great marketing pitch and sexy slideware, but in Linda Hayes' experience its functionality usually stops there. The leap from theory to practice seems to fall short, and it makes her wonder whether the concept of a fully integrated suite is fundamentally flawed or if it's just the implementation that needs attention. In this column, she begins her investigation by studying two test cases to decide whether these experiences are anomalies or the rule. |
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