The success or failure rate of a development team can largely be correlated with the expertise and skill sets represented by its individual members. Sometimes, software development C-level officers can become so mired in the myriad aspects of running a business and getting products released as quickly as possible that they lose sight of what … continue reading
Google has announced improved beta testing of Android apps in the Google Play Developer Console with a new open beta service. According to the Android Developers blog, developers can use an open beta to invite users with one-click invitations and scale to a large number of testers while also limiting the maximum number. The new … continue reading
Software testers may at times feel like their efforts are not fully appreciated by project programmers and developers. In some instances, they may even face a great deal of disdain from these parties and be seen as drags on the production process. These conditions can become so far gone that quality assurance teams may feel … continue reading
The underlying theme for this year’s Android Developer Conference was cross-platform development, with even Intel getting in on the multi-OS targeting party. This was reflected in the vendors at the show today. For developers looking to deploy to Android and iOS, they have a new option: Darwino. This platform allows developers to build applications that … continue reading
It may sound counter-intuitive to say that developers shouldn’t perform testing on the products they produce. After all, who knows a site or app better than those who created it? Aren’t developers exactly the people who should be testing software, given that they put it together and know how it’s supposed to work? It’s this … continue reading
Requirements define the things we want our applications to do, but before they are requirements, Microsoft’s agile “guru” Sam Guckenheimer said, they start as a belief. “Everything is a hypothesis,” he said. “The hypothesis has to be turned into an experiment, substantiated or diminished with data. Then, you either do more or do something else. … continue reading
Software development is not only knowledge-intensive work, it is knowledge-sharing-intensive work. A huge amount of knowledge sharing is required among software architects, engineers, product managers, project managers, developers, QA testers, and so on. In this environment, companies that implement a knowledge-sharing process thrive, while those who don’t learn how to share knowledge effectively can quickly … continue reading
No matter how genius a new application is, it is still required to go through testers’ hands. And despite the important role testers play, they remain in the shadows. When developers become aware of the variety of tests their software must endure, it often forces them to rethink the way they develop their software—in a … continue reading
This week’s featured GitHub project, Vorlon.js, is an extensible, platform-agnostic tool for remote JavaScript debugging and testing. Developed by the Microsoft DirectX team, Vorlon.js is powered by Node.js and the Socket.io real-time event-based communication engine. John Shewchuk, a Microsoft technical fellow and CTO of the Microsoft Developer Platform, introduced Vorlon last week at Build and … continue reading
In its 2015 report, the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) identified SQL injection and cross-site scripting among its Top 10 software vulnerabilities. Again. If it feels as if you’ve been reading this same story for the last decade, it’s because you have. So why is it that we can build intelligent robots, fling unmanned … continue reading
Mobile devices have changed our world. Smartphones and tablets allow employees and customers to be available and active online almost 24z7—something unimaginable in the PC era. Mobile devices’ touch-screens support rich media and application functionality and deliver a far more powerful user experience than ever thought possible. The impact is largely felt in the testing … continue reading
While the reviews of the Apple Watch are a bit mixed at this point, one thing is clear: Smartwatches are going mainstream. Apple has never failed to disrupt a market as they enter it—from the digital music player to the laptop to the smartphone—and nothing less should be expected for wearables. No, the Apple Watch … continue reading
