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 SOFTWARE


  Week 1 : Research - Elements of Successful iPhone Games.

This weekend I started work on my first full blown game for the iPhone. I’m not ready to share the details of what the game will be specifically as I’m sure these will change dramatically over the coming weeks. All I’m sure on is it will be a platform game built with Corona SDK.To get me started I’ve been downloading a bunch of games from the app store, jotting down some of the areas contributing to their addictiveness and success.Short levelsI do most of my game playing in short burst. This may be during a short train journey into town, or a few minutes while my di...

2,280 0       MOBILE IPHONE GAME DESIGN FACORS


  Pair Programming: The disadvantages of 100% pairing

I’ve written a lot of blog posts in the past about pair programming and the advantages that I’ve seen from using this technique but lately I find myself increasingly frustrated at the need to pair 100% of the time which happens on most teams I work on.From my experience it’s certainly useful as a coaching tool, as I’ve mentioned before I think it’s a very useful for increasing the amount of collaboration between team members and an excellent way for ensuring that knowledge of the code base is spread across the team.On the other hand I no longer see it as the...

2,340 0       DISADVANTAGE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PARING


  On testers and testing

Over the years, I’ve come to hold some strong. opinions on testing, testers and the entire business of quality assurance. Inspired by this post on Facebook’s testing, I wanted to write this down so I can point people to it. Some of this is controversial. In fact, even mentioning some of this in conversation has caused people to flip the bozo bit on me.Most product teams don’t need a separate testing role. And even if they do, the ratio of full time dev:full time test should be in the order of >20:1. For evidence, look no further than some of the most successful engineer...

2,737 0       TESTING DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE TESTER UNDERSTANDING


  The Value of the Designer Who Codes

"Well, it's a start, but basically it stinks," said Steve Jobs, telling early Apple engineer Chris Espinosa exactly how he felt about the company's first calculator application. Iteration after iteration, Jobs continued to be dissatisfied with the calculator. Espinosa continued to code, slowly inching his way to perfection. But nothing was quite right. In a flash of both brilliance and perhaps frustration, Espinosa put together a visual builder that let Jobs design the calculator himself by changing the thickness of the lines, the size of the buttons, the shading, and the background, without ...

3,194 1       CODER DESIGNER VALUE DESIGNER KNOWS CODE


  Reducing Code Nesting

"This guy’s code sucks!" It’s something we’ve all said or thought when we runinto code we don’t like. Sometimes it’s because it’s buggy, sometimes it’sbecause it conforms to a style we don’t like, and sometimes it’s because itjust feels wrong. Recently I found myself thinking this, and automaticallyjumping to the conclusion that the developer who wrote it was a novice. Thecode had a distinct property that I dislike: lots of nesting. But the more Ithink about it, the more I realized that it’s not really something Iâ€...

3,141 0       CODE NESTING READABILITY MAINTAINABILITY REDUCTION


  10 Things Beginner Developers Should Know

If you are a novice developer, it might be confusing about where you should start, because the field is broad and provides many options for you. There are so many questions you might ask yourself, such as “What programming language should I learn?” or “Should I also know front-end, or only back-end?” And I am sure there are much more than that. Well, in order for you to be able to start with an advantage against the others, I’ve decided to help you start your career as a developer with the following list of tips.1. Decide upon the skills you wantWhen starting out...

3,671 0       ADVICE SOFTWARE DEVELOPER BEGINNER


  Static Code Analysis

The most important thing I have done as a programmer in recent years is to aggressively pursue static code analysis.  Even more valuable than the hundreds of serious bugs I have prevented with it is the change in mindset about the way I view software reliability and code quality.It is important to say right up front that quality isn’t everything, and acknowledging it isn’t some sort of moral failing.  Value is what you are trying to produce, and quality is only one aspect of it, intermixed with cost, features, and other factors.  There have been plenty of hugely su...

2,892 0       QUALITY ANALYSIS STATIC CODE MICROSOFT 360 VALUE


  Why developer-friendliness is central to API design

Today, APIs play a bigger role in software development than ever before. The evolution of computing has been dominated by ever-increasing levels of abstraction; the use of higher-level languages, of course, but also the development of platforms, libraries, and frameworks. Professor Douglass C. Smith claims the progression of this second category far outpaced the development of programming languages.  Developers are also noticing that difficulty has shifted from designing algorithms and data structures to choosing, learning, and using an ever-growing set of APIs. Yet, many developers may b...

1,863 0       API USER FRIENDLY SIGNIFICANCE IMPROVE QUALITY