development

When we consciously measure something, we try to measure precisely and often assume that our measurements are accurate and useful. However, software development and testing activities are not subject to the same kinds of quantitative measurements and precise predictions we find in physics. Instead, our work is like the social sciences, in which complex interactions between people and systems make measurement difficult and precise prediction impossible. Michael Bolton argues that all is not lost. It is possible and surprisingly straightforward to measure development and testing accurately and usefully–even if not precisely. You can measure how much time is spent on test design and execution compared with time spent on interruptions, track coverage obtained for each product area, and more.

The tag-line for Feature Injection is "As we pull value from a system, we inject features." So before we can start, we need to identify the business value. But how do we do that? This edition also expands on the 20/20 vision conference concept.

As certain as evolving requirements lead to code changes, code changes lead to code degradation. Therefore, code refactoring is critical to the long-term viability of all software products. Kevin Sawicki shares tips and tricks for refactoring to help developers identify code that needs refactoring, preserve the correct code history during refactoring sessions, and ensure that appropriate unit tests cover the refactored code. Kevin demonstrates the Eclipse open-source frameworks and Java-based tools, including EMMA for code coverage analysis and JUnit for unit testing. These tools not only make code refactoring less painful, they also empower developers to constantly improve their code through relentless refactoring. Kevin outlines a step-by-step process to find refactoring candidates, perform the refactorings in an isolated code branch, and collaborate with other developers to review the refactored code.

The past decade brought the rise of the Agile movement, which split into two parts-Scrum, dominating the project management practices of agile; and XP, dominating its technical practices. Of the two, Scrum has had the greater impact as the industry quickly grasped its team-based benefits. During the rapid adoption of Scrum, technical practices were not being ignored. Programmers were gradually adopting XP and related development practices. In 2008, the Software Craftsmanship movement was founded as evidenced by the Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship. Driven by the tremendous improvement in programming accuracy and style that comes from agile principles and practices, this movement strives to "raise the bar" of professionalism and quality in the software industry. We can-and must-choose the disciplines, attitudes, and practices that comprise our profession, and then we must live within those bounds.