Software-Development

If you have the choice, embracing an open approach to development has tremendous benefits. It allows you to build on the work of other scientists, and enables others to build on your own efforts. To make the development of open scientific software more rewarding and the experience of using software more positive, the following ten rules are intended to serve as a guide for any computational scientist. » Andreas Prlić1, James B. Procter | ploscompbiol.org

Testers are often thought of as people who find bugs, but have you ever considered how testers actually approach testing? Do you ever wonder what testers actually do, and how they can add value to a typical technology project? I’d like to take you through the thought process of testers and discuss the types of things they consider when testing a mobile app. The intention here is to highlight their thought processes and to show the coverage and depth that testers often go to. ...

As software developers, we develop habits that allow us to build products that work and do not fail under stress. Every software developer knows what an ”off-by-one” error is, and like the Karate Kid, we train extensively so we can avoid those traps. We learn how to avoid these and other similar software problems and we sharpen our skills to find logic errors. As we mature as developers, finding logic errors and incomplete solutions becomes our way of life. It defines us. But our engineering strength is also our social weakness. Countless times as engineers you will find yourself interrupting someone telling a story, an anecdote or a joke to correct a false assumption, provide an extra fact that the narrator overlooked, give a bigger perspective on the problem or point out that the joke premise is actually flawed. You can identify this behavior because the person interrupting usually starts with the phrase ”Well, actually…”. ...

Debates over technology, technique, and process often go nowhere because the participants are arguing from different levels of aspiration. You’re unlikely to convince someone they should switch to programming Ruby for its beauty, if they’re merely looking to make a living as a single consultant serving local businesses in Schaumburg, Illinois. Questions such as ”does this run on my existing web host?” or ”will my clients want something their nephew web designer hasn’t even heard of?” matter far more. Their aspirations are local, finding something that (sorta) works, and getting paid. ...