Craftsman software development

However, as there may be design paradigms figured into this paradigm, TDD is generally compared to traditional testing methodologies, which do not require that additional time involved. Maybe I shoudl have been clearer in my statements on this but my intent was to state that between the two testing paradigms no one has been proven superior when both are of equal quality in their use. I am a senior software engineer trained in the development of low-defect software.

I know all of the required paradigms needed to do this and attempt to implement them in my own projects whenever I can. However, even in companies that touted the use of quality software engineering techniques, the best that happened was lip services to the concepts. And even where I have proven substantially the quality of such paradigms via the output I produced, project leaders still had no idea as to why they would even consider them.

I have been in the field over 40 years doing this work in a variety of environments and none of them, with the exception of certain project leaders, ever encouraged quality software development Hi Steve, I agree to some extent with some of what you are saying here. I think every agilist would say that what makes Agile work is that it is a combination of techniques that were successful in the past.

In other words, if things like evolutionary design and well factored code are good ideas, lets do them all the time. Agile has been very helpful in getting that word out, which to me is the biggest benefit of all. While some corporations do indeed use agile as a way to mask guerrilla programming, the same guerrilla programming would exist in a more formalized approach.

I contend that it is not up to the corporation to determine whether we as programmers write good code, but it is up to us. In other words, to abuse Shakespeare, "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars, but in ourselves. The core reason why we are "craftsmen" and craftswomen is simply because programming languages come from a different era, an era driven by lambda-calculus, an era where everything was either an action or a type.

We have to craft our code because we need to constantly and inconsistently encode state an invoice is issued, received, paid, in default, reimbursed The programming languages that we are given are so insane that even SQL reifies a relationship behind the attribute of a type, or a type itself. There is no "relationship" concept in SQL not to mention state , it's all the head of the developer. OO is by far the worst offender by amount of code written where action and types subsume state machines as a bunch of attributes and disjointed actions, and relationships as mere type composition mechanisms.

The sad part of this story is that States and Relationships are the structure of software, no type or action would make sense outside the frame work they provide. We are coding a bit like a residential architect would be build a house with beams and studs reified in paint and siding elements. Wouldn't work too well? That's why we have no choice other than being craftsmen.

Perhaps it is time to change course [2], we tried that one for 50 years. There is often a confusion in how people understand TDD. And how they see a non-TDD development. It can be same level of unit testing, but tests created immediately after the "main" code. Or at unit tests are added some time later "as time permits". Or just manual testing.

Becoming Software Craftsmen. Like Print Bookmarks. Nov 20, 4 min read by Ben Linders. The manifesto for software craftsmanship states: As aspiring Software Craftsmen we are raising the bar of professional software development by practicing it and helping others learn the craft.

Through this work we have come to value: Not only working software, but also well-crafted software Not only responding to change, but also steadily adding value Not only individuals and interactions, but also a community of professionals Not only customer collaboration, but also productive partnerships That is, in pursuit of the items on the left we have found the items on the right to be indispensable.

In the blog post the codesmith Chris ODell shares his definition of a craftsperson: in my mind a craftsperson is someone who not only creates something from nothing from materials of their choice, but usually puts a part of themselves into what they make. In his follow up blog post anyone can be a codesmith he explained how codesmiths can develop themselves to become codesmith masters: The barrier to being a codesmith should be low.

To learn something, the bar must be raised continuously: Repeatedly writing the code to solve the same programming problem over and over again is exactly the same thing, except unless you are introducing new challenges by adding constraints and twists, you are only benefiting from the exercise the first, and perhaps, the second time, you undertake the activity.

Programmers have to program to become software craftsmen: I get lots of emails asking me about the best way to learn programming or how someone can improve their skills. Make Android apps. Fortunately, other telltale artifacts of top-level craftsmanship are easy to spot. A great team will use the following processes and tools to ensure that the product you are seeking matches what is delivered:.

Solidifying the underlying details is critical to creating a site or application that does the heavy lifting you need it to do. It helps to ensure that your project will come in on time and on budget, while dramatically reducing the likelihood of expensive and time-consuming redesigns down the road.

Do your due diligence and find a development partner who practices craftsmanship; ask them to provide you examples of how they approach their work. Those who love what they do, and take pride in how they do it, will be eager to share their craft with you and point you down the path towards a successful website or software development project. The Search for Quality Code It is worthwhile to note that the computers, smartphones, and other sophisticated machines in our lives do not yet think for themselves.

Sandro mentioned that organizations should not look into solutions like Scrum and XP that are means to an end, but more importantly organizations should look deeper and identify their problems and pains. Identifying problems, technical or not, opens the door to start thinking in solutions. In closing, Sandro commented that organizations should pay attention to Software Craftsmanship because this can fix underlying quality problems. Low-quality software can seriously limits business agility; again if this was identified as the main problem that the organization has, then Software Craftsmanship could be considered as a solution.

Juan es un capacitador, expositor y pensador alternativo. This is an Agile Alliance community blog post. Opinions represented are personal and belong solely to the author. They do not represent opinion or policy of Agile Alliance. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. It does not correspond to any user ID in the web application and does not store any personally identifiable information.

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This cookie is used to sync with partner systems to identify the users. It could be something like MVC for example. A framework will give you a starting point, it will help you by providing a few ways for you to build upon. It's usually very focused on a very specific type of activity. This is only a small part of what you are building, so it's good to understand that from the beginning. However, a framework won't cover dependencies and interactions with other applications. You might even use more than one framework to build something.

Maybe you add Entity Framework into the mix, maybe you add others as well. Now you have a number of frameworks in place and you need to get them to play nicely together.

The architecture of a system is decoupled from such things. It helps if you visualize things somehow. Even drawing on a whiteboard will do wonders because it will help you see the gaps. Software development is a social activity and you will interact with others a lot. It is very easy to let your ego take charge and fight everything. It's very easy to say you're the one making decisions and don't have to explain everything to everyone, but that usually leads to chaos.

This kind of attitude won't be good for the project. People will lose trust, then they start doing other things, if you don't bother keeping them informed why should they? Before you know it, the whole thing is going down the drain and eventually fails, because everyone does things their own way without thinking about the good of the project. This is where the craftsman mindset shines the most.

The project comes first. What this means is that you need to consider the bigger picture and code accordingly. Sometimes people apply a quick fix just to get something working quickly. This is usually done to sort out something small that has a negative effect, usually when the system is in production. What happens on bigger projects is that these quick fixes become norm, add up and given enough time, will make a system pretty much unmaintainable.

As a craftsman, we need to understand these things. We're not just a machine, taking in pizza and coke and churning out code all day and night. This is a highly logical and creative activity where experience matters, where you can spot the direction where something is going.

Yes, sometimes you might need to apply a quick fix to stop losing money, if a system is losing millions an hour because of an issue, then by all means, fix it as quickly as you can.

Once you've done that, make sure a proper fix is in place, don't let these quick fixes add up and kill the system eventually. What this boils down to is taking the time to understand the issue and put a fix in place which guarantees the problem won't happen again. This is part of a much bigger discussion of course, because we typically have deadlines and only so much time is available.

However, being able to articulate and explain the problem, the solution and the dangers of ignoring the problem, is paramount. We're not there just to code, we're there to share our experience and prevent such things from happening. That's because this works better if you are surrounded by people with a similar way of looking at and understanding things.

But even if you are not in such a place, then maybe you should show why having this type of attitude works and helps build better software and maybe you can lead the way to change.

The last thing you want is to compromise and accept mediocrity because the product will end up being exactly that, mediocre! Let's take a simple example. One of your requirements is to build a login page with a username and a password. How hard can this be? A page with two fields and a button.

The list of questions gets bigger and bigger. This is only a login page, imagine the number of questions when you build something more complex than that. This is what we typically do, we look at a piece of work and start asking questions to make sure we build the right thing. We think of anything that could go wrong and we draw on the experiences of the past.

Once we put a system live, once we go through a security audit, that helps clarify what kind of questions we should ask when building anything. Experience matters! This is a funny one. It's very easy to get attached to our code and even be defensive about the choices we make. Other people can't possibly understand the beauty of what we are doing, right?

Well, here's the thing. In the real world, no one is going to care. There is one simple truth out there, the code needs to perform a function, that's it. It either does it or it does not. It allows us to make changes without feeling sorry for doing it.

It leaves the ego out the door and we can then focus on what matters, which is the business value. This is very important in my eyes, the code doesn't exist in a parallel world, it simply needs to perform a function and deliver value, maybe save someone's time, maybe it does more than ever, quicker than ever.

There is always a reason why that code exists and if the reason goes away, we can then simply remove it, without any second thoughts. We touched on programming being a social activity already. There are many things which matter and being able to support and maintain a codebase, is right at the top. Whether we are part of a big team or even a one-man team, we still need to think what will happen when the code we write goes into production.

Will someone else be able to pick it up and maintain it, fix bugs, maybe even add new features to it? We all dread legacy code, but if we stop to think a bit about it, we will soon discover that every bit of code we write becomes legacy the moment it goes into production.

The shiny new framework we think will solve all our problems, give it six months and it will be old news and something else will be the flavor of the month.