Does repeated loading and saving of a compressed audio file reduce quality?
Like it is the case with jpeg images for example? What's about mp3 or ogg vorbis audio files? ...
quality
When reviewing requirements specification what "deadly sins" need to be addressed?
When reviewing requirements specification (that includes functional, non-functional requirements, constraints etc) however small or large it is what are the "deadly sins" committed by authors to look out for? Please list not more than 7 most essential things (in order of decreasing severity) that being done (or not done) in requirements...
Writing Quality Tests
we know that code coverage is a poor metric to use when gauging the quality of test code. we also know that testing the language/framework is a waste of time. on the other hand, what metrics can we use to identify quality tests? are there any best practices or rules of thumbs that you've learned to help you identify and write higher qu...
Definition of software quality?
There are quite a few questions on measuring and proving software quality here, however, to this point, there was no formal definition of software quality itself on Stackoverflow: Please give formal, all encompassing definition of software product quality. Since the question is fairly generic I am happy to keep accepting a better defin...
.NET Code Security Review Tool
I am looking for a utility that can be used against .NET assemblies to validate code against best practices, and most importantly can review the code for Security, Injection, and Cross Site Scripting vulnerabilities. I know that it isn't an exact science, but I'm looking for anyones experience/recommendations on the best way to a soluti...
So, what is the current state of the art in data quality tools...?
We have a project coming up with significant data quality challenges and I was curious what the state of art in data quality related tools and methodoligies is today for small-to-medium size organizations. Any recommendations? ...
Seeking clarifications about structuring code to reduce cyclomatic complexity
Recently our company has started measuring the cyclomatic complexity (CC) of the functions in our code on a weekly basis, and reporting which functions have improved or worsened. So we have started paying a lot more attention to the CC of functions. I've read that CC could be informally calculated as 1 + the number of decision points i...
Simple C++ function -- Is this code "good"?
The following code was produced by a consultant working for my group. I'm not a C++ developer (worked in many languages, though) but would like some independent opinions on the following code. This is in Visual Studio C++ 6.0. I've got a gut reaction (not a good one, obviously), but I'd like some "gut reactions" from seasoned (or even...
Telling bugs and features apart?
Have you ever been in the situation when looking at the code you couldn’t tell if something is a bug or poorly implemented feature? Or you simply didn’t dare to fix something that looked like a definite bug to you, but were not sure if anyone already relies on the functionality behaving in a certain way? What are your best heuristics ...
Delphi 2009? Ok or buggy?
Hi. I got tired of trying Delphi every year hoping that I will find a stable version to upgrade from my good old Delphi 7. Should I bother to try Delphi 2009? Or it is as unstable as the previous versions and should I wait until Delphi 2010? Thanks ...
How do you measure the quality of your unit tests?
If you (or your organization) aspires to thoroughly unit test your code, how do you measure the success or quality of your efforts? Do you use code coverage, what percentage do you aim for? Do you find that philosophies like TDD have a better impact than metrics? ...
What kind-of stats does your company collect to define code / software product quality
Most programming houses / managers i know of can only define quality in terms of the no of bugs made / resolved in retrospect. However most good programmers can innately sense quality once they start meddling with the code.(right?) Has any programming houses that you know of, successfully translated this information into metrics that...
What is the relationship between quality and user-friendliness of software?
Is user-friendliness an important aspect of the quality of software? For example most of the Microsoft products are quite user friendly, but does that necessarily imply that their quality is superior too. ...
How to deal with great products written with crappy code ?
I was asked to improve and maintain an internal Web application used and approved by an important community of users. This includes performance improvements and adding features. Unfortunately, the code is bloated, sometimes very poorly written, and hard to read and change. This makes changes much more difficult to implement. Despite al...
Is the UI a valid indicator of internal quality?
When looking at the myriad types of software written at our company, I instantly jump to conclusions of the quality of the entire product based on the UI. If I find misspellings, weird tab orders, fields not lined up, odd colors, I assume that the entire application is of poor quality. I'm assuming that if the programmer doesn't care e...
What is the optimal productivity stack for developers?
What is the optimal productivity stack for developers? When deciding what to include in your personal productivity stack, what criteria do you use? ...
How does one deal with backdoor code changes?
Scenario I admit (somewhat shamefully) that I have not only witnessed this particular practise, but I have also committed it myself. My name is Jeff and I have gamed a quality process to get my way. The scenario I am referring to is this. Engineer A wants to do something a certain way but Engineer B has already implemented it. Rather t...
Why is software quality so problematic?
Even when viewing the subject in the most objective way possible, it is clear that software, as a product, generally suffers from low quality. Take for example a house built from scratch. Usually, the house will function as it is supposed to. It will stand for many years to come, the roof will support heavy weather conditions, the doors...
Flash webcam video quality settings
I'm working on a video streaming application in Flash and I've been told I need to add quality selection tools. The requirements are "low", "medium" and "high" quality. I'm trying to figure out what kinds of quality settings to actually apply for this (framerate and video quality settings). I feel like there has to be some kind of sta...
Checking C# new() initialisation for null?
I've found this piece of code on Koders: private ServiceProvider SiteServiceProvider { get { if (serviceProvider == null) { serviceProvider = new ServiceProvider(site as VSOLE.IServiceProvider); Debug.Assert(serviceProvider != null, "Unable to get ServiceProvider from site object."); ...