Software Developer

The exploding apps economy has increased the businesses’ need to have a strong mobile app presence. This has spurred a dramatic upward shift in mobile app development. Traditionally, testing has been done in the lab, replicating user environments and usage scenarios. However, that approach can be insufficient. Complementing in-the-lab manual and automated testing with testing in real user environments is a critical new component of mobile app development.

Most of us take language for granted. We use words without thinking about how they may affect others and then are surprised at the reaction we get. Learn the importance of language in building and maintaining high performing agile teams. Become more aware of the words you choose and the impact of those words on your listeners. Doc List presents a series of exercises in a game show format. Participants attempt to identify loaded words in seemingly simple statements and questions. Some of the exercises are written; others are acted out in role play.

You get paid for doing that? Is it possible to both work and have fun in a large corporate setting? Can joy be made part of the workplace? For the past few years Ryan Kleps and his colleagues have been conducting an informal social experiment using gamification (before they knew it had a name) in their corporate training modules to encourage participation, engagement, and enjoyment.

Building the right personal brand is one of the most critical success factors in today’s workplace. Organizations develop a brand and image, but not many individuals think about their brand on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media outlets. Every person with career aspirations should be actively shaping their brand. As we interact with people, we want to influence them to support our efforts—approving projects, budgets, and funding; supporting our next career move; or recommending us for that promotion or raise we want.

Lean software engineering emphasizes continuous delivery of high quality applications. Ken Pugh explains the principles and practices that form the basis of lean software development―concentrating on developing a continuous flow by eliminating delays and loopbacks; delivering quickly by developing in small batches; emphasizing high quality which decreases delays due to defect repair; making policies, process and progress transparent; optimizing the whole rather than individual steps; and becoming more efficient by decreasing waste.

Software design is about change. A good design facilitates adding features—and adding new developers to the team. Yet any change to the code impacts design and could damage existing functionality. Without design idioms and practices, the code can degrade into a "big ball of spaghetti” and a maintenance nightmare. Your team must know which decisions to make early in design and which to defer. Rob Myers reviews “families” of design attributes and practices, showing the common principles within each.

The question of how much design to do up-front on a project is an engaging conundrum. Too much design often results in excess complexity and wasted effort. Too little design results in a poor architecture or insufficient system structures which require expensive rework and hurt more in the long run. So, how can we know the right balance of upfront design work and emerging design approaches? Al Shalloway shows how to use design patterns—coupled with agile’s attitude of “don’t build what you don’t need”—to guide your design efforts.

“We could not test this because…” Every technology professional has experienced issues during system testing when unit testing was overlooked or cut short. Every project team has hit roadblocks during system testing when dependent systems or complicated data have been unavailable. Service virtualization is a tool that eliminates the waiting and the excuses, making thorough and complete unit and system testing realistic. Done well, service virtualization improves defect detection and resolution in every phase of a project—driving down cost while improving quality.