Software Engineering » Software Developers

The Best Software Downloading Website

admin — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:16:15 +0000

If you are looking for open source software then SourceForge is the place to go. I have used SourceForge to search and download a lot of software and I find it to be one of the best sites available.

If you look up SourceForge on Wikipedia you will be quick to learn that it is a storehouse for source codes maintained by Sourceforge Inc. Software engineers use the site as a centralized location to deal with open source software development.

SourceForge gives open source developers the opportunity to post and host their products for no cost. This means the software displayed are open source and free. It is not necessary, but will I point out anyway that there are some conditions to comply with; one of the most important is that developers and Sourceforge will not be responsible for any damages made by the software to the users system. In my book this is a fair deal.

The site consists of more than one million registered users according to Wikipedia and 169281 projects. All thanks to the software developers who are at work. All the programs are arranged in their specific categories for easy browsing and searching.

If you are a casual computer user then you can find all your software here. I have found most of the programs I currently use here for the past few years. Also the quality of the programs are great, I have never encountered a major bug in any of them that I used. Full credit goes to the programmers.

Also all the software has readme file which gives the users information, on all the known issues and bugs the program is known to produce. This it to ensure the user understands any risks in using the said program. Thus, all you need to do is pay keen attention to these instructions.

Technically speaking you can define “open source” of SourceForge as meaning the codes from all the programs on the site is available to everyone. This is great for experienced developers or learners who are fond of experimenting with the codes.

Also, all the programs contain a log that has all the developmental stages of them inclusive of all bugs and other problems.

What I also like about SourceForge is that help is available from all the other users in addition to all the downloads. Most of these users are experienced programmers who are friendly and willing to help in anyway. I have gained a lot of insights from them.

If your budget is low and you somewhat have the patience and time to figure out stuff or simple like open source software then SourceForge is the place to visit.

By: Musa Aykac

Understanding How Document Version Control Software Works

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:29:31 +0000

There are several document version control software that are available online. However, before proceeding to purchase one, it is helpful to have a better understanding of the concept of version control or revision control.

Version control, or revision control, or source control is a feature that allows computer users to keep track of their files over time. This is important so that a user can get back to his previous working version in case he messes up. In more technical terms, revision control is the management of revisions done on the same information unit. This is frequently used by engineering and software development companies to keep track of the ongoing development of their digital documents. Document changes are identified through a “revision number” or “revision level” which is an increment in the associated number or letter code of a document. Moreover, the name of the person who is responsible for a revision is also reflected in the revision control code. For example, a digital document is assigned a revision code number “1.” When changes are made to this document, its revision code number is incremented to “2″. Revision control features are integrated into various software types like spreadsheets, word processors like MSWord and Koffice and various content management systems. With this feature, a computer user can revert or go back to a previous revision or page in order to correct any mistake committed.

Revision control is a crucial tool especially for computer software engineers and software developers. It allows the former to keep track and control changes made on source codes. Developers of software applications also use it to maintain documentation, source codes and configuration files. Most developers create multiple copies of different program versions while working on updates and software issues like bugs. These bugs are present only in some versions so when locating them, all versions of the software would have to be run. The practice of retaining multiple copies of programs is often done in large software companies. However, this practice is heavily criticized for its inefficiency.

A centralized model is traditionally used by software developers wherein all revision control functions are made on a shared server. In this set-up, two developers who make changes on the same file at the same time may end up overwriting the work of the other. In order to prevent this occurrence, file locking is implemented. Files are locked to allow only one user to access it in any given time. Other version control systems have a version merging capability which allows multiple developers to work at the same time on the same file.

When choosing which among different document version control software to purchase, make sure to select one that can provide the needed version control benefits. This software is beneficial even for those who are not developing software applications as it can be used to keep backup files especially concerning ongoing tasks or projects. What is important is that the concept, lingo and philosophy of version control should be clearly understood so that the most appropriate software is chosen.

By: Sam Miller

Discovering Black Box Testing Advantages

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:54:32 +0000

Testing is an important process in the software development business. In fact, there are many levels of tests conducted by software engineers before their product is being introduced in the market. Likewise, they use different approaches, and among them is black box testing. Many software developers these days opt to use this test approach. Below are the black box testing advantages shared by many software developers.

Software developers summarized in two reasons why they use the black box test approach. First is that the test can be conducted by any person, even the non-technical individual. This is because black box testing does not need prior know-how of the internal components of the program and the coding. Thus, it can be performed by anyone. The second reason identified by software engineers is that this technique can be made to verify contradictions between the actual process and the provisions.

To further understand this approach, it will be a big help to know what black box testing really means and how it works. Black box testing is also referred as data-driven based kind of testing. In this technique, the data tested is derived from the specified operational requisites without affecting the components of the application during the time of its completion. The major purpose of black box testing is to authenticate the functionality of the whole system. This test is anchored on implementing the functions in the application, as well as evaluating the input and output data. The functionality of the system is being computed by determining the output against the equivalent input.

Meanwhile, errors found in the application are also being classified. Since the goal of black box testing is to check how the process runs, then it is just appropriate that the attempt to seek errors in the system is categorized. With such move, software developers would be guided in checking the whole system. Among these error categories are: interface user, functions, data structures, database external access, performance, and initialization and termination of some variables.

Black box testing, however, is not all positive. Like any approach, there are also some bad sides of using this technique. One of these is that there are chances that an earlier undefined path may emerge during the testing procedure. Another disadvantage is that test cases to be written for the process may consume time and can be complicated. Also, identifying inputs can be difficult.

Now, you might wonder why software engineers test their products. The reason for this is quality. Software testing is the method of running a program to find whether there are errors during execution. The aim here is to evaluate the potential of a specific program. Testing is helpful for both the software developer and the company itself. Through testing, the developer gets the opportunity to improve his or her product. In effect, the software firm that employs the developer benefits as well. This is so since the company is better able to market a quality software product, which in turn can translate to more sales. The main goal is to provide clients a software product that is user-friendly and efficient. Thus, with the black box testing advantages, it is not surprising why many companies encourage its developers to use this approach.

By: Sam Miller

Agile Software Development Tools For Success

admin — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:47:35 +0000

Software development methodology refers to a set method for solving information problems using a programming language. This study covers specific methods that scope the stages of analyzing, designing, developing, testing, documenting, implementing, and evaluating inside the intricate sphere of software engineering.

Several methodologies began to rise in the late 90’s and thus stimulated public attention particularly to software developers. Various combinations were formulated from old ideas, new ideas, and transmuted old ideas on every each methodology. Prior to that, they all emphasized close collaboration between the programmer team and business experts; face-to-face communication (as more efficient than written documentation); frequent delivery of new deployable business value; tight, self-organizing teams; and ways to craft the code and the team such that the inevitable requirements mix-ups were not being led into crisis. In elaborative relation from those details mentioned, Agile Software Development uncovers better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Such principles or values are being extracted out from it as follows:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and agile tools

• Working software over comprehensive documentation

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

The term Agile software development was coined in the year 2001, subsequently to the formulation of the Agile Manifesto. This is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing and cross-functional teams. The said Agile development generally promotes disciplined project management process that upholds such as:

• Frequent inspection and adaptation

• Leadership philosophy that encourages teamwork

• Self-organization and accountability

• Set of engineering best practices; of which allows rapid delivery of high-quality software

• Aligns development with customer needs and company goals as a business approach

As lots of studies and research are being carried out just for the betterment of the world of technology and information, agile development methods have grown technically by numbers of them. Henceforth, they promote mostly with development iterations, teamwork, collaboration, and process adaptability throughout the life-cycle of the project.

The said methods are very efficient and organized wherein they break tasks into small increments with minimal planning, and do not directly involve long-term planning. Iterations are short time frames, such as the “timeboxes”, that typically last from one to four weeks. Each iteration involves a team working through a full software development cycle including planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, unit testing, and acceptance testing when a working product is demonstrated to stakeholders. Thus, it utterly helps minimize overall risk, and lets the project adapt to changes quickly. Stakeholders produce documentation as required. Its goal is to have an available release after on every each iterations since multiples of them (products or new features) are expected to be released afterwards, regarding to the fact that a single iteration may not add enough functionality to warrant a guaranteed market release.

In relation about the collaboration between cross-functional and self-organizing team mentioned a while ago; a team composition in an agile project are usually of those that were mentioned, without consideration for any existing corporate hierarchy or the corporate roles of team members. Team members normally take responsibility for tasks that deliver the functionality an iteration requires. They decide individually how to meet an iteration’s requirements.

The methods thereof emphasize face-to-face communication over written documents when the team is all in the same location. When a team works in different locations, they maintain daily contact through videoconferencing, voice, e-mail, etc.

Agile development teams mostly work in a single open office (called bullpen), which facilitates such communication. Each team is composed of members that typically ranges with 5-9 people to enable team communication and collaboration conveniently pliable. So it is then expected that larger development efforts may be delivered by multiple teams working toward a common goal or different parts of an effort. Coordination of priorities across teams is hence may be required for it.

Agile tools are being created in order to help development teams on their infinite search of the right and sufficient essential tools for software development. The agile tools are as follows:

1. JIRA Studio as a hosted development suite

-brings together Atlassian’s products to give you agile project management, issue tracking, wiki collaboration, source code analysis and reviews, plus subversion to improve release planning, team communication and customer feedback gathering.

Useful for: Developer, team lead and product manager

Designed for: Planning, Lightning feedback and gathering customer feedback

2. JIRA + GreenHopper for agile project management

-Coupled with the Greenhopper plugin, JIRA is the foundation of a powerful agile platform for developers to plan releases, gather feedback, track issues and manage project status.

Useful for: Developer, Team Lead and Product Manager

Designed for: agile planning, gathering customer feedback and monitoring team performance

3. Confluence for agile collaboration

-designed to help agile developers plan requirements, collaborate on changes and display metrics.

Useful for: Developers (internal blogging with peers), technical writers (develop docs) and product managers (collaborate on requirements and Balsamiq mockups)

Designed for: planning (PRDs and JIRA issues macro), lightning feedback (documenting changes, RSS + Dashboards) and team performance metrics (JIRA Issues macro + Bamboo builds plugin)

4. FishEye for code analysis

-With FishEye’s insight into a source code repository agile developers can find code fast, get notified about relevant code changes and receive useful metrics on team performance.

Useful for: Developers (find code fast), Team Leads (metrics on the team and each developer) and Technical Leads (RSS for a branch)

Designed for: lightning feedback and team performance metrics

5. Bamboo for continuous integration

-Agile developers use continuous integration to get the most from their unit tests. Set up Bamboo to get instantaneous feedback on the impact of each commit and monitor build metrics.

Useful for: Developers (learn about their commits), Team Leads (get build stats fast) and Testers (perform integration and performance tests early in the game)

Designed for: Testing early and often (CI Whitepaper), lightning feedback (two- way IM) and team performance metrics

6. Clover for code coverage

-The ultimate Java code coverage tool for agile development, Clover accurately assesses the impact on your tests and notifies you of test coverage gaps before it is too late.

Useful for: Developers and testers

Designed for: Testing early and often and lightning feedback

7. Crucible for code reviews

-integrates peer code review directly into your work habits. Agile developers use Crucible get timely feedback on their code and maintain metrics and an audit trail.

Useful for: Developer (Distributed review), Team lead (get developers to learn from each other) and Technical lead (Get metrics on audit trail on who did what and why)

Designed for: Testing Early and often (pre-commit reviews), lightning Feedback (review notifications), Performance Metrics (reports and audit trail)

8. Pyxis – creators of GreenHopper

-Given by the certified trainers and by practitioners with industry expertise, Pyxis’ training program provides effective techniques through practical exercises and group discussions to increase your knowledge of Agility and help your software development team build the right software.

Useful for: Developers, Team Leaders, Scrum Masters, Product Managers, and Product Owners

Designed for: Mastering agile software engineering practices and developing innovative project management practices

The Agile tools given are some of the few tools that are being offered from Agile Software Development developers provided by the internet. Some tools vary accordingly from depending on its uses which are said to be well-tested.

By: Rio Marie Melbali

What Does Software Engineering Involve?

admin — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 06:34:12 +0000

The first point that has to be made about software engineering has to do with its scope of activities. Software engineering is the management of the entire process of development of computer systems to solve problems.

As software systems have grown more sophisticated and complex, software developers have sought new methods for their development. Software engineering is a response to that need. Software engineering is still rapidly changing and maturing.

Typically, when someone is told to write a program, someone else has told him or her what the program is to do and why; the programmer is concerned only with how to write it. As software engineers, however, we will be the ones concerned with the what and why. Software engineering includes the whole range of activities having to do with problem solving – from helping the client define the problem or opportunity, to evaluating the client’s satisfaction with the solution.

Developing a software system may require writing a whole collection of programs to tell machines what to do, writing procedures to tell people what to do, and providing training so that people understand how to do it. We may need to convert data from an old system so it can be run by a new system, hire people and acquire machines to run the programs, and obtain space in which the machines and people can do their work. What we are building is a system of many parts working together. Such an endeavor requires patience and flexibility. We will have to fix the system when it does not do what we expected, or the client may ask us to change the system because he or she wants it do something else not previously intended.

Programming may be no more than 20 per cent of the total scope of software engineering, and the fraction of effort involved with programming can be expected to drop as improved methods are used for developing software systems. As time goes on, more of our effort will go into managing the overall process and less into programming.

By: Edeh Chijioke