It’s not a new idea. The use of rapid application development tools, application service providers, and drag-and-drop visual frameworks that got you 80% of the way to an application, have been tossed around for at least the past 10 to 15 years. The thinking was, if you could give line-of-business workers and other stakeholders the … continue reading
If you listen to the voices out there in our industry, organizations must release software at a breakneck pace if they want to survive in this consumerized, instant-gratification world of applications. Heaven forbid a competitor develops a new feature before you do. If that happens, you’re told, you might as well shut down your business … continue reading
“Cogito ergo sum.” — Rene Descartes, 17th century French philosopher and mathematician. To me, software processes are a kind of intelligence, and that means to me that every program is alive. This is how I really see it.” — Benjamin Shapiro, founder of Thinking Software. You’ll get the connection soon. But first… Long story short, Shapiro, … continue reading
Open-source software is being used more than ever, yet practices for sourcing the software are inefficient and vulnerabilities are pervasive, according to a report from supply-chain automation provider Sonatype. The number of open-source component download requests increased to 31 billion in 2015 from 17 billion in 2014, according to the report, which looked at supply … continue reading
Healthcare workers, airline pilots, sea captains and others are held to a code of professional ethics, as they hold people’s lives in their hands. Should software engineers working in those fields be held to the same exacting standards? I recently spoke with Prof. Andrew Boyd, an assistant professor of biomedical and health information sciences at … continue reading
The convergence of location awareness and data analysis has led to the creation of applications that are contextually aware. An example of that is the navigation application Waze. Drivers using Waze can share information with other “Wazers” such as a crash ahead, or heavy traffic, or a police car on the scene. Now, add to … continue reading
The Internet of Things is bringing connectivity beyond smartphones and tablets. But for all things to be connected, there must be a standard for making those connections. Without one true standard, of course, that means each device would have to be able to support multiple ways to connect—and this, of course, is neither efficient nor … continue reading
Progress, according to Paul Nashawaty, has been providing software development platforms and environments for more than 35 years. It is now looking to take the next generation of developer tools forward. Nashawaty, senior director of product and solutions marketing at Progress, was discussing the new DigitalFactory solutions the company has created to bring a more … continue reading
It’s one thing for organizations to look at periodic alerts from their IT infrastructure, triage them and then remediate the problem (if necessary). In today’s Big Data world, though, there might be as many as 70,000 alerts coming through. That makes effective response nearly impossible. Assaf Resnick recognized this problem when he founded BigPanda in … continue reading
Organizations today understand the need to digitally transform their businesses, as customers do more shopping online and on mobile devices, yet the complexity of this transformation has made many organizations feel like they’re already too late. At the center of this transformation is the customer experience. That means websites that are always on and frequently … continue reading
Good software requires a good process for creating it. Good software that meets the needs of the business requires an even better process. That’s the goal of the CMMI Institute, to make sure that organizations are tracking what they do so their performance improves. The CMMI—Capability Maturity Model Integration—originated at the Software Engineering Institute at … continue reading
People can find out in as little as 15 minutes if they’re paying too much for their auto insurance. There’s even a little green gecko to tell them so. Determining if you’re paying too much for software, though, might be a more complex task. Failure to understand and manage your licenses can lead to staggering … continue reading
