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Software Peter Principle
The Software Peter principle is used in software engineering to describe a dying project which has become too complex to be understood even by its own developers. It is well known in the industry as a silent killer of projects, but by the time the symptoms arise it is often too late to do anything about it. Good managers can avoid this disaster by establishing clear coding practices where unnecessarily complicated code and design is avoided. The name is used in the book ''C++ FAQs'' (see below), and is derived from the Peter principle – a theory about incompetence in hierarchical organizations. Causes Loss of conceptual integrity The conceptual integrity of software is a measure of how well it conforms to a single, simple set of design principles, according to ''The Mythical Man Month'' by Fred Brooks. When done properly, it provides the most functionality using the simplest idioms. It makes software easier to use by making it simple to create and learn. Conceptua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Engineering
Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' programmer'' is sometimes used as a synonym, but may also lack connotations of engineering education or skills. Engineering techniques are used to inform the software development process which involves the definition, implementation, assessment, measurement, management, change, and improvement of the software life cycle process itself. It heavily uses software configuration management which is about systematically controlling changes to the configuration, and maintaining the integrity and traceability of the configuration and code throughout the system life cycle. Modern processes use software versioning. History Beginning in the 1960s, software engineering was seen as its own type of engineering. Additionally, the development of soft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Refactoring
In computer programming and software design, code refactoring is the process of restructuring existing computer code—changing the '' factoring''—without changing its external behavior. Refactoring is intended to improve the design, structure, and/or implementation of the software (its '' non-functional'' attributes), while preserving its functionality. Potential advantages of refactoring may include improved code readability and reduced complexity; these can improve the source codes maintainability and create a simpler, cleaner, or more expressive internal architecture or object model to improve extensibility. Another potential goal for refactoring is improved performance; software engineers face an ongoing challenge to write programs that perform faster or use less memory. Typically, refactoring applies a series of standardized basic ''micro-refactorings'', each of which is (usually) a tiny change in a computer program's source code that either preserves the behavior of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Mythical Man-Month
''The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering'' is a book on software engineering and project management by Fred Brooks first published in 1975, with subsequent editions in 1982 and 1995. Its central theme is that adding manpower to a software project that is behind schedule delays it even longer. This idea is known as Brooks's law, and is presented along with the second-system effect and advocacy of prototyping. Brooks's observations are based on his experiences at IBM while managing the development of OS/360. He had added more programmers to a project falling behind schedule, a decision that he would later conclude had, counter-intuitively, delayed the project even further. He also made the mistake of asserting that one project—involved in writing an ALGOL compiler—would require six months, regardless of the number of workers involved (it required longer). The tendency for managers to repeat such errors in project development led Brooks to quip that his book is c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Obfuscation (software)
In software development, obfuscation is the act of creating source or machine code that is difficult for humans or computers to understand. Like obfuscation in natural language, it may use needlessly roundabout expressions to compose statements. Programmers may deliberately obfuscate code to conceal its purpose (security through obscurity) or its logic or implicit values embedded in it, primarily, in order to prevent tampering, deter reverse engineering, or even to create a puzzle or recreational challenge for someone reading the source code. This can be done manually or by using an automated tool, the latter being the preferred technique in industry. Overview The architecture and characteristics of some languages may make them easier to obfuscate than others. C, C++, and the Perl programming language are some examples of languages easy to obfuscate. Haskell is also quite obfuscatable despite being quite different in structure. The properties that make a language obfusca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Development Process
In software engineering, a software development process is a process of dividing software development work into smaller, parallel, or sequential steps or sub-processes to improve design, product management. It is also known as a software development life cycle (SDLC). The methodology may include the pre-definition of specific deliverables and artifacts that are created and completed by a project team to develop or maintain an application. Most modern development processes can be vaguely described as agile. Other methodologies include waterfall, prototyping, iterative and incremental development, spiral development, rapid application development, and extreme programming. A life-cycle "model" is sometimes considered a more general term for a category of methodologies and a software development "process" a more specific term to refer to a specific process chosen by a specific organization. For example, there are many specific software development processes that fit the spiral ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Management
Project management is the process of leading the work of a team to achieve all project goals within the given constraints. This information is usually described in project documentation, created at the beginning of the development process. The primary constraints are scope, time, and budget. The secondary challenge is to optimize the allocation of necessary inputs and apply them to meet pre-defined objectives. The objective of project management is to produce a complete project which complies with the client's objectives. In many cases, the objective of project management is also to shape or reform the client's brief to feasibly address the client's objectives. Once the client's objectives are clearly established, they should influence all decisions made by other people involved in the project – for example, project managers, designers, contractors, and subcontractors. Ill-defined or too tightly prescribed project management objectives are detrimental to decision-maki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Death March (project Management)
In project management, a death march is a project which participants believe to be destined for failure, or that requires a stretch of unsustainable overwork. The project marches to its death as its members are forced by their superiors to continue the project, against their better judgment. The term originated in the field of software development, and has since spread to other fields. Death marches are usually a result of unrealistic or overly optimistic expectations in scheduling or feature scope, and often result from a lack of appropriate documentation, relevant training, or outside expertise needed to complete the project. Management may desperately attempt to right the course of the project by asking team members to work especially grueling hours (14-hour days or 7-day weeks) or by attempting to "throw (enough) bodies at the problem", often causing burnout. The discomfort is heightened by project participants' knowledge that the failure is avoidable. It may have succeeded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-pattern
An anti-pattern in software engineering, project management, and business processes is a common response to a recurring problem that is usually ineffective and risks being highly counterproductive. The term, coined in 1995 by computer programmer Andrew Koenig (programmer), Andrew Koenig, was inspired by the book ''Design Patterns (book), Design Patterns'' (which highlights a number of design patterns in software development that its authors considered to be highly reliable and effective) and first published in his article in the ''Journal of Object-Oriented Programming''. A further paper in 1996 presented by Michael Ackroyd at the Object World West Conference also documented anti-patterns. It was, however, the 1998 book ''AntiPatterns'' that both popularized the idea and extended its scope beyond the field of software design to include software architecture and project management. Other authors have extended it further since to encompass environmental/organizational/cultural anti-pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Fowler (software Engineer)
Martin Fowler (18 December 1963) is a British software developer, author and international public speaker on software development, specialising in object-oriented analysis and design, UML, patterns, and agile software development methodologies, including extreme programming. His 1999 book ''Refactoring'' popularised the practice of code refactoring. In 2004 he introduced a new architectural pattern, called Presentation Model (PM). Biography Fowler was born and grew up in Walsall, England, where he went to Queen Mary's Grammar School for his secondary education. He graduated at University College London in 1986. In 1994 he moved to the United States, where he lives near Boston, Massachusetts in the suburb of Melrose.Martin Fowler at martinfowler.com. Retrieved 2012-11-15. Fowler started working with software in the early 1980s. Out of un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Code Smell
In computer programming, a code smell is any characteristic in the source code of a program that possibly indicates a deeper problem. Determining what is and is not a code smell is subjective, and varies by language, developer, and development methodology. The term was popularised by Kent Beck on WardsWiki in the late 1990s. Usage of the term increased after it was featured in the 1999 book ''Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code'' by Martin Fowler. It is also a term used by agile programmers. Definition One way to look at smells is with respect to principles and quality: "Smells are certain structures in the code that indicate violation of fundamental design principles and negatively impact design quality". Code smells are usually not bugs; they are not technically incorrect and do not prevent the program from functioning. Instead, they indicate weaknesses in design that may slow down development or increase the risk of bugs or failures in the future. Bad code sme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Principle
The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter, which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to "a level of respective incompetence": employees are promoted based on their success in previous jobs until they reach a level at which they are no longer competent, as skills in one job do not necessarily translate to another. The concept was explained in the 1969 book ''The Peter Principle'' (William Morrow and Company) by Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull. (Hull wrote the text, based on Peter's research.) Peter and Hull intended the book to be satire, but it became popular as it was seen to make a serious point about the shortcomings of how people are promoted within hierarchical organizations. The Peter Principle has since been the subject of much commentary and research. Summary The Peter principle states that a person who is competent at their job will earn a promotion to a position that requires different skills. If the promoted person lac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
