What would be a recommended book for Software Engineering? The book should be covering the various stages involved in software development process, covering topics such as: requirement gathering use cases domain model functional specifications architecture design testing deployment It should be a book that would help someone to und...
I distribute software online, and always wonder if there is a proper way to better define version numbers. Let's assume A.B.C.D in the answers. When do you increase each of the components? Do you use any other version number tricks such as D mod 2 == 1 means it is an in house release only? Do you have beta releases with their own ver...
We've been asked by a client to give us a time estimate on each and every bug we have. Though we do have a set schedule for bug fixing and have allocated time for it, we don't have a time allocation on each of the bugs we have. Simply, we have prioritized our bugs and have ensured that Highest priority bugs will be fixed in the time all...
Can anyone explain what advantages there are to using a tool like MSBuild (or NAnt) to build a collection of projects versus running DevEnv.exe from the command-line? A colleague I had worked with in the past had explained that (at least with older versions of Visual Studio) using DevEnv.exe was much slower than the other techniques, bu...
Can anyone recommend good simulation software for mobile devices? I am most interested in Nokia smart phones. ...
Hi, I'm a computer science student from Venezuela. I am looking for universities that have good Master/PhD programs on software development (computer science also, but I'm looking for something more into the engineering side of software, not the theoretical). Thanks for any answers ...
Companies in my area use to grow rapidly, And, the more and more employers require the "team playing". What is the best reply? I just did well in my own rock band, and, i play fine on a remote but those are the place where evryone has own task, say, SW developer, or sysadm, or the musioc tool, like drums, and so on, but the team of devel...
Imagine you don't have the problem of feature creep, you have a motivated and stable team, clear defined problems to solve, AND you know the domain/language/tools related to your project. How do you stick to a schedule and accomplish that 1.0 milestone? What is your approach to an iterative shipping? I'd like recommendations specially ...
I am wondering how everybody plans their web apps. Do you write out a list of functions and tick them off when done? Do you have stacks of paper with Use Cases all over them? What is the sweet spot between not planning at all and doing so much planning that your deadline has passed before you have even started? EDIT: Most of the web ap...
I'm a senior developer and consider myself very good at what I do. I have high expectations for how I believe software should be developed. I'm having a hard time finding a place to work that shares a similar view on the software development process. Here's my modified version of The Joel Test that I ask potential employers during a...
Specifically, what are the best indicators to forecast if someone will be a great developer, and also, someone that you would want to work with? Examples: education breadth of technical knowledge depth of knowledge in a particular domain interpersonal skills work on open source projects choice of tools, operating systems, and languag...
Specifically, what are the best indicators to forecast if someone will be a great manager for a team of software developers, and also, someone that you would want to work for? Examples: education breadth of technical knowledge depth of knowledge in a particular domain interpersonal skills work on open source projects choice of tools,...
What are the key use cases for the use of virtualization -- that is, running one or more "virtual PCs" using software such as VMWare and Microsoft Virtual PC -- for software development? Also -- are there other instances/uses of virtualization that aren't covered by my definition above (use of a tool like MS Virtual PC or VMWare), and t...
Is software development engineering? If no, what are the things that it lacks in order to be qualified thus? AFAIK, there is a software engineering institute at the Carnigie mellon university, that prescribes and maintains the CMMI standards. Is that something that will turn development into engineering? Also, what is your opinion on th...
Since I've started my first job as a professional software developer about two years ago, I've read many articles about commonly accepted methodologies (e.g. Scrum, XP), technologies (e.g. EJB, Spring), techniques (e.g. TDD, code reviews), tools (bug tracking, wikis) and so on in software companies. For many of these I've found that we...
Possible Duplicate: What is your single favorite development tool? Every day I realize how much I love Visual Studio for .NET development.... but, I believe that Resharper, may hold a value that surpasses Visual Studio's (I am using VS 2005 for WPF/WCF development). I decided it would be great to compile a list of the most v...
From Wikipedia: To say that a company "eats its own dog food" means that it uses the products that it makes. So the question is: do you use the software you are developing? ...
I work for a small company that has about 25-30 employees. We make software for the hydraulics industry and most of our employees are mechanical engineers who are self-taught programmers including me. One difference that I find between myself and other employees is their lack of passion for software and their will to learn more about sof...
I was recently put in charge of the wiki for the development team. The wiki is still in its infancy, so I have a lot of room to work with. It goal is to house internal to the development team. Currently, the main piece of information that the wiki holds is Coding Standards. What are some best practices your dev team uses for its inter...
Yesterday I was having a heated debate with a coworker on what would be the preferred error reporting method. Mainly we were discussing the usage of exceptions or error codes for reporting errors between application layers or modules. What rules do you use to decide if you throw exceptions or return error codes for error reporting? ...