| |
| |
|
softwarecatch.com
|
|
|
|
A Time-Saving Programming Tactic that Doesn't Work
Let's say that you have a software project that's under severe time pressure. Let's say that this deadline is so tight that you already know it will involve many late nights of black coffee and frenetic programming. What can you do to make this process go faster? I honestly don't know, since the correct answer will depend on one's individual circumstances. However, I can tell you how many programmers do respond under such circumstances. They decide to save time by skipping over the software planning and design phase, and immediately start coding away. To an inexperienced or otherwise undisciplined programmer, this seems to make sense. After all, the finished product is what truly matters, right? The customer doesn't care about flowcharts, class diagrams or software architectures. All they want is something that works. It seems to make sense, but it's a foolhardy approach. That way lies madness. We've all heard that an ounce of planning is worth a pound of cure, but in the world of software development, this adage is often forgotten. If a real estate developer needs to get a house built quickly, does he save time by skipping over the architectural design phase? Does he decide to dispense with blueprints, and just start laying down concrete? Of course not. He knows that the results would be chaotic, and that work will progress more slowly without careful forethought and a concrete plan. Yet that's the approach that many people take when it comes to software. They decide to just start coding away, thinking that this makes the software development process more efficient. On fairly simple projects, this might work. On anything of moderate complexity though, such an approach is doomed to fail. Sure, you may save time at first. However, without a concrete software plan and a carefully considered design, problems are bound to catch up with you before long. Many of these problems won't become clear until the testing phase comes around, and by then, it may be too late. Sadly, such reckless thinking is often encouraged in the corporate world. Due to time constraints, a misguided manager may instruct his team to skip over the design work and just start hacking away. This makes the team seem focused and productive, but this strategy can wreak havoc on the project timeline. What's more, the resultant code is often a tangled, poorly documented, chaotic mess. If this software must be maintained for years to come, then you have a recipe for disaster. Mind you, I'm not saying that an elaborate design is always necessary. If time is short, then one might not have the luxury of an intricate software plan with exhaustive design documentation. However, one should at least have a general software architecture laid out-one which is detailed enough to make the software development process smoother and easier. Programmers rarely err on the side of over-planning, but they frequently fall into the trap of insufficient design detail. Don't make this mistake, if you really want to save time. About the author: V. Berba Velasco Jr. is proud to work as a senior electrical and software engineer at Cellular Technology Ltd (http://www.immunospot.com, http://www.elispot-analyzers.de, http://www.elispot.cn) a biotechnology company that prides itself on its standards of excellence.
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Microsoft CRM Integration & Customization: SharePoint Document Gateway MS CRM is very close to document workflow automation, including Microsoft Office documents: Words, Excel, etc. The document workflow was perfectly automated about 10 years ago in Lotus Notes Domino. Is Your Small Business Ready For A CRM Software Solution? I have yet to see a business that, sometimes in spite of themselves, didn't benefit from implementing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or a simpler Contact Management software solution.Your small business might be the rare exception, but if you can relate to some of the following scenarios, you may be ready to take advantage of the improved and inexpensive CRM systems coming on-stream. Partitioning, Formatting and Reinstalling in Windows 98 Formatting and reinstalling windows 98 is very easy if you have the right know-how.This article will discuss how to format, partition and reinstall windows 98 on your PC. What To Do When Windows Wont Boot When Windows fails to boot it is normally caused by you installing a program or device and it has caused a conflict with one or more other programs.This will no doubt give you plenty of heartaches if you're not certain which program caused Windows to not boot up. Freight Forwarding ERP: Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains customization & setup - overview Microsoft Great Plains may be recommended for international freight forwarding / transportation company. Great Plains has such features as multicurrency (Euro, Pound, Yuan, Yen, Peso, Real), Spanish, French, Brazilian Portuguese (and if needed Unicode-specific languages such as Chinese, Japanese). Microsoft CRM Implementation - US Market Lessons Microsoft CRM is CRM answer from Microsoft Business Solutions. If you compare it to other traditional CRM applications, such as Siebel - you will see that Microsoft CRM does use all the resent Microsoft technologies, that means that Microsoft targets its CRM to Windows market exclusively, plus this means that Microsoft CRM is more difficult in its installation. Secure File Transfer Using SSH Plus Additional Audit & Automation - FSA Reporting In order to meet regulatory and corporate compliance requirements reporting members will require a cost effective solution that may be installed at one side of the data transfer without being tied to any proprietary protocol.Considerations include:- is it designed for use in most enterprise environments?- is it flexible & adaptable to suit an unlimited range of needs for secure file transfer internally and externally? Functionality and benefits should include:+ can easily be adapted+ Automatic transfer to single or multiple destinations of any file. Microsoft Great Plains 8.0 Brazilian Version - Overview For International Consultant Microsoft Great Plains has substantial mid-market share in the USA plus due to the marketing efforts of former Great Plains Software (now part of Microsoft Business Solutions) in Spanish Speaking South America, South Africa, United Kingdom, Middle East, Poland - we see strong position of Microsoft Great Plains in these regions (on these markets MBS promotes two mid-market ERP: Great Plains and Navision).In Brazil situation is the following. Making The Decision To Automate Your Software Testing Not every software testing project can or should be automated. Before your department accepts a new test automation project, you should establish a process by which projects are reviewed and either accepted or rejected. How the Firefox: How to... Manual Helped Me A few months back I really got sick of my computer always being slow and having system errors. So I started doing a bit of research and heard of a new browser called "Firefox". Keep Your Software Simple! A Review of EditPlus I like my software simple. If it's too complex or difficult to figure out, I don't use it. Fleet Maintenance Software Reviews Innovative Maintenance Systems (IMS) is one company that offers solutions for companies in need of fleet maintenance software. One of their most popular products is Fleet Maintenance Pro®. You Can Write Microsoft Office Program in About 60 Minutes Microsoft Office program is a programming tool called Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) that comes with Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook, Power Point, and Publisher. VBA can make your repeating jobs automatic. Microsoft Great Plains Customization Tools - Overview Former Great Plains Software Dynamics/eEnterprise, and currently Microsoft Business Solutions Great Plains was initially designed in the earlier 1990th as the extendable and modular application with its proprietary tool: Great Plains Dexterity, written in C programming language as a shell. This was popular tendency those days -compare with SAP ABAP or Navision C/Side. Defining OLAP Solutions and Data Warehouse design This tutorial covers OLAP solutions used by Data warehouses and understanding Data Warehouse design. The enterprise needs to ask itself certain fundamental questions before actually launching on the process of designing the data warehouse. Cisco Certification: Five Things To Do DURING Your CCNA Exam There are plenty of articles out there about how to prepare for the CCNA exam. However, there are also things you can do to increase your chances of success on exam day during the most important part of the entire process -- the time that you're actually taking the test. When is a Software Engineer Not a Software Engineer? The title of "software engineer" has got to be among the most highly abused in the corporate high-tech world. It's also one of the most popular. Intro to UNIX Shells A UNIX Shell is in simplest terms, a command line interpreter, that takes the users input and gives it to the Kernel. If you are familiar with DOS, you will remember the 'command. QuarkXpress Tips: How to Move Content Between Print and Web Layouts Since its release in 1987, QuarkXpress had made an immediate impact to computer enthusiasts. QuarkXPress introduced precision typography, layout and color control to the desktop computer, and delivered those features to designers at a fraction of the cost of proprietary typesetting systems. 10 Ways to Learn a Software Following tips help you to learn a software in lesser time and in an efficient manner:1. After installing a software package, look for any README file in the installed folder.
|
|
Powered By: Free Work At Home Business Opportunity! |
| © 2006 |
