Development

The Woes of IDEs

An epigram: "We may not feel these limitations until they have been lifted from us, just as we often do not know we are sick until we suddenly feel better. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that future languages will make us feel those limitations of [our present environments] that are not detectable today." --Gerald Weinberg

Coding Smart: People vs. Tools

Tools can help developers be more productive, but they're no replacement for thinking.

No Source Code? No Problem!

What if you have to port a program, but all you have is a binary?

Another Day, Another Bug

We asked our readers which tools they use to squash bugs. Here's what they said.

User Interface Designers, Slaves of Fashion

The status quo prevails in interface design, and the flawed concept of cut-and-paste is a perfect example.

Stand and Deliver:
Why I Hate Stand-Up Meetings

Stand-up meetings are an important component of the 'whole team', which is one of the fundamental practices of extreme programming (XP).

Microsoft's Compact Framework Targets Smart Devices

Welcome to my first installment of ACM Queue's ToolKit column. Each issue I'll dig beneath the market-friendly, feature-rich exterior of some of the best-known (and some of the least-known) development tools in an attempt to separate the core app from the product spec sheet.

The Big Bang Theory of IDEs

Remember the halcyon days when development required only a text editor, a compiler, and some sort of debugger (in cases where the odd printf() or two alone didn't serve)? During the early days of computing, these were independent tools used iteratively in development's golden circle. Somewhere along the way we realized that a closer integration of these tools could expedite the development process. Thus was born the integrated development environment (IDE), a framework and user environment for software development that's actually a toolkit of instruments essential to software creation. At first, IDEs simply connected the big three (editor, compiler, and debugger), but nowadays most go well beyond those minimum requirements.

Reading, Writing, and Code

Forty years ago, when computer programming was an individual experience, the need for easily readable code wasn't on any priority list. Today, however, programming usually is a team-based activity, and writing code that others can easily decipher has become a necessity. Creating and developing readable code is not as easy as it sounds.

The Demise of the Waterfall Model Is Imminent

Rumors of the demise of the Waterfall Life-cycle Model are greatly exaggerated. We discovered this and other disappointing indicators about current software engineering practices in a recent survey of almost 200 software professionals. These discoveries raise questions about perception versus reality with respect to the nature of software engineers, software engineering practice, and the industry.

Death by UML Fever

A potentially deadly illness, clinically referred to as UML (Unified Modeling Language) fever, is plaguing many software-engineering efforts today. This fever has many different strains that vary in levels of lethality and contagion. A number of these strains are symptomatically related, however. Rigorous laboratory analysis has revealed that each is unique in origin and makeup. A particularly insidious characteristic of UML fever, common to most of its assorted strains, is the difficulty individuals and organizations have in self-diagnosing the affliction. A consequence is that many cases of the fever go untreated and often evolve into more complex and lethal strains.

Intel's Heavy-Duty Dev Tools

In the PC and server worlds, the engineering battle for computer performance has often focused on the hardware advances Intel brings to its microprocessors.

First, Do No Harm: A Hippocratic Oath for Software Developers?

What's wrong with taking our profession a little more seriously?

Grid Tools: Coming to a Cluster Near You

Hot scientific tools trickle down to support mainstream IT tasks.

Opinion:
For Want of a Comma, the Meaning Was Lost

What does punctuation have to do with software development?

The Burning Bag of Dung and Other Environmental Antipatterns

And you think you have problems?

Kode Vicious Strikes Again

Dear Kode Vicious, I have this problem. I can never seem to find bits of code I know I wrote. This isn't so much work code--that's on our source server--but you know, those bits of test code I wrote last month, I can never find them. How do you deal with this?

Kode Vicious: The Return

Dear KV, Whenever my team reviews my code, they always complain that I don't check for return values from system calls. I can see having to check a regular function call, because I don't trust my co-workers, but system calls are written by people who know what they're doing--and, besides, if a system call fails, there isn't much I can do to recover. Why bother?

Kode Vicious Unleashed

Dear KV, My officemate writes methods that are 1,000 lines long and claims they are easier to understand than if they were broken down into a smaller set of methods. How can we convince him his code is a maintenance nightmare?

Kode Vicious Reloaded

The program should be a small project, but every time I start specifying the objects and methods it seems to grow to a huge size, both in the number of lines and the size of the final program.

Comments are More Important than Code

The thorough use of internal documentation is one of the most-overlooked ways of improving software quality and speeding implementation.

Kode Vicious Battles On

Dear KV, I'm maintaining some C code at work that is driving me right out of my mind. It seems I cannot go more than three lines in any file without coming across a chunk of code that is conditionally compiled.

Kode Vicious vs. Mothra

Dear KV, My co-workers keep doing really bad things in the code, such as writing C++ code with macros that have gotos that jump out of them, and using assert in lower-level functions as an error-handling facility. I keep trying to get them to stop doing these things, but the standard response I get is, "Yeah, it's not pretty, but it works." How can I get them to start asking, "Is there a better way to do this?" They listen to my arguments but don't seem convinced. In some cases they even insist they are following good practices.

Mal Managerium:
A Field Guide

Please allow me the pleasure of leading you on an 'office safari', so to speak. On today's journey we'll travel the corridors of computerdom in search of the widespread but elusive mal managerium, or bad manager, in common parlance. They will be difficult to spot because we will be in a sense looking for that most elusive creature of all: ourselves. That is to say, it's quite possible that many of us will share some of the qualities with the various types of bad managers we shall encounter. Qualities that we are loath to admit we possess, I might add.

Kode Vicious Cycles On

Not only does California give you plenty of sun, it also apparently has employers that give you plenty of time to play around with the smaller problems that you like, in a programming language that's irrelevant to the later implementation.

Kode Vicious Unscripted

The problem? Computers make it too easy to copy data.

Kode Vicious:
The Doctor is In

A koder with attitude, KV answers your questions. Miss Manners he ain't.

A Conversation with Ray Ozzie

Cooperate, Communicate, Collaborate

Stop Whining about Outsourcing!

I'm sick of hearing all the whining about how outsourcing is going to migrate all IT jobs to the country with the lowest wages.

Coding for the Code

Can models provide the DNA for software development?

Anything Su Doku, I Can Do Better

The new puzzle craze from japan is sweeping the world, and testing our Boolean logic.

But, Having Said That, ...

80 percent of the useful work is performed by 20 percent of the code.

Kode Vicious Bugs Out

What do you do when tools fail?

Evolution or Revolution?

Where is the High in High Tech?

The Heart of Eclipse

A look inside and extensible plug-in architecture ECLIPSE is both an open, extensible development environment for building software and an open, extensible application framework upon which software can be built. Considered the most popular Java IDE, it provides a common UI model for working with tools and promotes rapid development of modular features based on a plug-in component model. The Eclipse Foundation designed the platform to run natively on multiple operating systems, including Macintosh, Windows, and Linux, providing robust integration with each and providing rich clients that support the GUI interactions everyone is familiar with: drag and drop, cut and paste (clipboard), navigation, and customization.

Breaking the Major Release Habit

Can agile development make your team more productive?

You Can Look It Up:
or Maybe Not

Chasing citations through endless, mislabeled nodes

A License to Kode

Code-scanning software is expensive and I'm not sure it's worth it. What do you think?

As Big as a Barn?

Taking measure of measurement

Alloneword

Errors, deceptions, and abmiguity

API Design Matters

Why changing APIs might become a criminal offense. After more than 25 years as a software engineer, I still find myself underestimating the time it will take to complete a particular programming task. Sometimes, the resulting schedule slip is caused by my own shortcomings: as I dig into a problem, I simply discover that it is a lot harder than I initially thought, so the problem takes longer to solvesuch is life as a programmer. Just as often I know exactly what I want to achieve and how to achieve it, but it still takes far longer than anticipated. When that happens, it is usually because I am struggling with an API that seems to do its level best to throw rocks in my path and make my life difficult.

Gettin' Your Head Straight

Kode Vicious is hungry. He sustains himself on your questions from the software development trenches (and lots of beer). Without your monthly missives, KV is like a fish out of water, or a scientist without a problem to solve. So please, do you part to keep him sane (or at least free from psychotic episodes), occupied, and useful.

Five Steps to a Better Vista Installation - Transcript

Unravel the mysteries and learn the best practices associated with mastering the new application installation routines for Vista applications. In this Premium Queuecast hosted by Michael Vizard, Bob Corrigan, senior manager for global product marketing at Macrovision, and Robert Dickau, principal trainer, reveal the five most crucial things you need to know about Vista application installations.

Software Operations' Profit Potential

Today's software producer faces many challenges in building and keeping a satisfied customer base. In this ACM Premium Queuecast, Macrovision FLEXnet Publisher Product Manager Mitesh Pancholy discusses how companies can solve their license management challenges and turn their software operations into a profit center.

Managing Collaboration

Jeff Johnstone of TechExcel explains why there is a need for a new approach to application lifecycle management that better reflects the business requirements and challenges facing development teams.

Only Code Has Value?

A recent conversation about development methodologies turned to the relative value of various artifacts produced during the development process, and the person I was talking with said: the code has "always been the only artifact that matters. It's just that we're only now coming to recognize that." My reaction to this, not expressed at that time, was twofold. First, I got quite a sense of déjà-vu since it hearkened back to my time as an undergraduate and memories of many heated discussions about whether code was self-documenting.

The Yin and Yang of Software Development

The C/C++ Solution Manager at Parasoft explains how infrastructure elements allow development teams to increase productivity without restricting creativity.

There's a Lot of It About

And everybody's doing it.

A Conversation with Steve Bourne, Eric Allman, and Bryan Cantrill

In part one of a two-part series, three Queue editorial board members discuss the practice of software engineering.

The Fabrication of Reality

Is there an "out there" out there?

Beautiful Code Exists, if You Know Where to Look

A koder with attitude, KV answers your questions. Miss Manners he ain't.

Code Spelunking Redux

It has been five years since I first wrote about code spelunking, and though systems continue to grow in size and scope, the tools we use to understand those systems are not growing at the same rate. In fact, I believe we are steadily losing ground. So why should we go over the same ground again? Is this subject important enough to warrant two articles in five years? I believe it is.

The Flaws of Nature

And the perils of indecision. The latest musings of Stan Kelly-Bootle.

Don't be Typecast as a Software Developer

Kode Vicious's temper obviously suffers from having to clean up after the mistakes of his peers. What would he have them learn now so that he can look forward to a graceful and mellow old age?

One Peut-Être, Two Peut-Être, Three Peut-Être, More

Puns and allusions

Painting the Bike Shed

A sure-fire technique for ending pointless coding debates

Words Fail Them

Dedesignating and other linguistic hazards

Making Sense of Revision-control Systems

Whether distributed or centralized, all revision-control systems come with complicated sets of tradeoffs. How do you find the best match between tool and team?

You Don't Know Jack About Software Maintenance

Long considered an afterthought, software maintenance is easiest and most effective when built into a system from the ground up.

Merge Early, Merge Often

Integrating changes in branched development

Some Rules and Restrictions May Apply

An inquiry into contracts and the Next Big Thing

Commitment Issues

When is the right time to commit changes?

Broken Builds

Frequent broken builds could be symptomatic of deeper problems within a development project.

Enhanced Debugging with Traces

An essential technique used in emulator development is a useful addition to any programmer's toolbox.

Simplicity Betrayed

Emulating a video system shows how even a simple interface can be more complex—and capable—than it appears.

Avoiding Obsolescence

Overspecialization can be the kiss of death for sysadmins.

Collecting Counters

Gathering statistics is important, but so is making them available to others.

A Paucity of Ports

Debugging an ephemeral problem

Tackling Architectural Complexity with Modeling

Component models can help diagnose architectural problems in both new and existing systems.

Gardening Tips

A good library is like a garden.

B.Y.O.C. (1,342 Times and Counting)

Why can't we all use standard libraries for commonly needed algorithms?

Porting with Autotools

Using tools such as Automake and Autoconf with preexisting code bases can be a major hassle.

The One-second War (What Time Will You Die?)

As more and more systems care about time at the second and sub-second level, finding a lasting solution to the leap seconds problem is becoming increasingly urgent.

The Most Expensive One-byte Mistake

Did Ken, Dennis, and Brian choose wrong with NUL-terminated text strings?

Wanton Acts of Debuggery

Keep your debug messages clear, useful, and not annoying.

Coding Guidelines:
Finding the Art in the Science

What separates good code from great code?

Code Rototilling

KV hates unnecessary work.

The Hyperdimensional Tar Pit

Make a guess, double the number, and then move to the next larger unit of time.

Scale Failure

Using a tool for the wrong job is OK until the day when it isn't.

Managing Technical Debt

Shortcuts that save money and time today can cost you down the road.

A System is not a Product

Stopping to smell the code before wasting time reentering configuration data

My Compiler Does Not Understand Me

Until our programming languages catch up, code will be full of horrors.

A Nice Piece of Code

Colorful metaphors and properly reusing functions

Can More Code Mean Fewer Bugs?

The bytes you save today may bite you tomorrow

A Generation Lost in the Bazaar

Quality happens only when someone is responsible for it.

The Essence of Software Engineering: The SEMAT Kernel

A thinking framework in the form of an actionable kernel

Code Abuse

One programmer's extension is another programmer's abuse.

Divided by Division

Is there a best used-by date for software?

Swamped by Automation

Whenever someone asks you to trust them, don't.

Cherry-picking and the Scientific Method

Software is supposed be a part of computer science, and science demands proof.

The Naming of Hosts is a Difficult Matter

Also, the perils of premature rebooting

Online Algorithms in High-frequency Trading

The challenges faced by competing HFT algorithms

Barbarians at the Gateways

High-frequency Trading and Exchange Technology

Agile and SEMAT - Perfect Partners

Combining agile and SEMAT yields more advantages than either one alone

Bugs and Bragging Rights

It's not always size that matters.

The Software Inferno

Dante's tale, as experienced by a software architect

This is the Foo Field

The meaning of bits and avoiding upgrade bog downs

The Logic of Logging

And the illogic of PDF

Major-league SEMAT: Why Should an Executive Care?

Becoming better, faster, cheaper, and happier

Forked Over

Shortchanged by open source

Outsourcing Responsibility

What do you do when your debugger fails you?

ACM and the Professional Programmer

How do you, the reader, stay informed about research that influences your work?

The Responsive Enterprise: Embracing the Hacker Way

Soon every company will be a software company.

A New Software Engineering

What happened to the promise of rigorous, disciplined, professional practices for software development?

Raw Networking

Relevance and repeatability

Using Free and Open Source Tools to Manage Software Quality

An agile process implementation

The Science of Managing Data Science

Lessons learned managing a data science research team

Lazarus Code

No one expects the Spanish Acquisition.

Hickory Dickory Doc

On null encryption and automated documentation

Still Finding the Right Questions

Branching out and changing with the times at acmqueue

Lean Software Development - Building and Shipping Two Versions

Catering to developers' strengths while still meeting team objectives

Automation Should Be Like Iron Man, Not Ultron

The "Leftover Principle" Requires Increasingly More Highly-skilled Humans.

It Probably Works

Probabilistic algorithms are all around us--not only are they acceptable, but some programmers actually seek out chances to use them.

Pickled Patches

On repositories of patches and tension between security professionals and in-house developers

The Paradox of Autonomy and Recognition

Code Hoarding

Committing to commits, and the beauty of summarizing graphs

GNL is Not Linux

What's in a Name?

Use-Case 2.0

The Hub of Software Development

Delegation as Art

Be someone who makes everyone else better.

The Flame Graph

This visualization of software execution is a new necessity for performance profiling and debugging.

What Are You Trying to Pull?

A single cache miss is more expensive than many instructions.

Nine Things I Didn't Know I Would Learn Being an Engineer Manager

Many of the skills aren't technical at all.

Introducing Research for Practice

Expert-curated guides to the best of CS research

Chilling the Messenger

Keeping ego out of software-design review

Dynamics of Change: Why Reactivity Matters

Tame the dynamics of change by centralizing each concern in its own module.

Bad Software Architecture is a People Problem

When people don't work well together they make bad decisions.

Cloud Calipers

Naming the next generation and remembering that the cloud is just other people's computers

Fresh Starts

Just because you have been doing it the same way doesn't mean you are doing it the right way.

Industrial Scale Agile - from Craft to Engineering

Essence is instrumental in moving software development toward a true engineering discipline.

The Unholy Trinity of Software Development

Tests, documentation, and code

Resolving Conflict

Don't "win." Resolve.

Research for Practice: Cryptocurrencies, Blockchains, and Smart Contracts; Hardware for Deep Learning

Expert-curated Guides to the Best of CS Research

Does Anybody Listen to You?

How do you step up from mere contributor to real change-maker?

Side Effects, Front and Center!

One System's Side Effect is Another's Meat and Potatoes.

Research for Practice: Technology for UnderservedCommunities; Personal Fabrication

Expert-curated Guides to the Best of CS Research

Is There a Single Method for the Internet of Things?

Essence can keep software development for the IoT from becoming unwieldy.

Metaphors We Compute By

Code is a story that explains how to solve a particular problem.

Operational Excellence in April Fools' Pranks

Being funny is serious work.

Popping Kernels

Choosing between programming in the kernel or in user space

DevOps Metrics

Your biggest mistake might be collecting the wrong data.

Continuous Delivery Sounds Great, but Will It Work Here?

It's not magic, it just requires continuous, daily improvement at all levels.

Manual Work is a Bug

A.B.A: always be automating

GitOps: A Path to More Self-service IT

IaC + PR = GitOps

The Obscene Coupling Known as Spaghetti Code

Teach your junior programmers how to read code

Using Remote Cache Service for Bazel

Save time by sharing and reusing build and test output

Writing a Test Plan

Establish your hypotheses, methodologies, and expected results.

SQL is No Excuse to Avoid DevOps

Automation and a little discipline allow better testing, shorter release cycles, and reduced business risk.

Tear Down the Method Prisons! Set Free the Practices!

Essence: a new way of thinking that promises to liberate the practices and enable true learning organizations

Know Your Algorithms

Stop using hardware to solve software problems.