CPTTM software developer newsletter issue #3

Topics in this issue:

• What is eXtreme Programming (XP)?
  
• Borland is selling its IDE business
  
• Book review: Testing Computer Software
  

What is eXtreme Programming (XP)?

A poster on our IT support forum asks "What is eXtreme Programming (XP) and how it is related to UML, system design and HCI?". Here is my reply:

I'd say Extreme programming (XP) is the single most important thing that one should learn for software development (the second being OO design). It is a very effective process (ie, who to do what and when) for software development. It will change your life as a programmer and make it much better.

How XP is related to UML, design and HCI?

• UML is a language for expressing designs. One can use UML when the XP team is discussing the design.
• For software design, in XP we do interative development and TDD (test driven development) so that the code is "hammered" to be flexible and reusable.
• HCI is about designing the UI. XP won't teach you how to do that, but it lets the customer see the running system frequently so that the UI designer can get fast feedbacks on his UI design.

If you have questions about XP, join the discussion here. In May we will have a course on XP (with 80% course fee reimbursement). Try to attend if you can!

Borland is selling its IDE business

According to Borland, it is selling Delphi, JBuilder and etc. If you have existing Delphi programs to maintain, what would you do?

1. Keep using the current Delphi version.
2. Upgrade to Delphi.NET, add new features in a separate program using Visual Studio (VB.NET or C#) and integrate the two programs on the .NET runtime level.
3. Expose the existing code as web services, add new features in a Java program and integrate them.
4. Rewrite it in Java, VB.NET or C#.

Book review: Testing Computer Software

What's slowing us down in software development? It's bugs. We spend a lot of time finding and fixing bugs. Therefore, to speed up our development process, the best way is to test the software in a smart way. The book "Testing Computer Software" teaches you how to do that. It covers: test case design, test planning, project lifecycle overview, software errors, boundary conditions, bug reports, regression testing, black box testing, software quality and reliability, managing test teams, printer testing, internationalization, and managing legal risk.

This book is suitable for new testers and QA managers. It (Chinese edition) is available for borrowing at CPTTM Cyber-Lab. Many other books on software development are also available. Please see http://www2.cpttm.org.mo/cyberlab/mslib.

Feedbacks

Have any questions, ideas or experiences regarding software development? Contact me at 781313 or kent at cpttm dot org dot mo.

Until next time, 

Kent Tong