I’ve heard it said that the difference between useful software and worthless crap is that people build useful software for themselves, and build worthless crap for other people to use.
If debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in.
Programmers are responsible for software quality – quality in their own work, quality in the products that incorporate their work, and quality at the interfaces between components. Quality has never been and will never be tested in. The responsibility is both moral and professional.
In my previous article (Performance Tuning Resources For Web Clients) I discussed why you should care about the performance of your web client and then listed out some of the better places to go on the web to find information on how to go about tweaking your web clients to get that better performance. In this article I am going to dig a little deeper and call out specifically what I think are the Must-do-No-excuse-not-to-do-them-You-are-really-being-unprofessional-if-you-are-not-doing-them tweaks that you should be performing on every single one of your web development projects.
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“Good enough” software is rarely good enough. It is a sad manifestation of the spirit of modern times, in which an individual’s pride in his or her work has become rare.
A colleague of mine forwarded an article to me during this last week, which he prefaced with the following statement …
guys, I’ll write it in all caps and bold:
I AM NOT PROMOTING OR IN AGREEMENT OF ANY OF THE POINTS THE ARTICLE MAKES.
… which begs the question, why did he send it not only to me, but an entire team of people? I choose to believe it was because he is an enlightened soul that understands that the best way to reinforce your own beliefs is to read more of the opposing point of view, not more of the view you already have. I am lucky to have a few of these souls working for me right now.
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Coding styles are THE religious debate of the Software Engineering industry. Everyone has an opinion, but no one has an iron clad argument as to why their ideas are better than someone else’s.
It doesn’t matter what language you write your code in or what company your work for or even what open source project you contribute too, the topic of coding styles will sooner or later raise its head. The debate can range from the banal, like which line the curly brace goes on, to the overly subjective, like how to name variables.
In the end most of the decision points are pretty subjective and it is somewhat irrelevant what you choose, as long as everyone agrees and you are consistent. But don’t be mistaken, a consistent coding style is an important consideration on any project, from the solo developer to the multi-national team.
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Firefox add-ons can be hard to manage – for me, mostly in terms of finding quality add-ons that do something you find useful.
There is a new feature available called Add-on Collections. The name is helpfully descriptive – basically people can now group related add-ons together, give that group (or “collection” if you will) a name and list it on the site. So if you are on every social network, there is a collection of all of the add-ons that allow you to stay connected with those networks from the browser. If you like to travel, there is a collection that pulls together all of the add-ons that will help you do your thing. You get the idea.
Read more about Firefox Add-on Collections here.
So, if you consider yourself a web developer of any kind, please take my recommendation and install the Web Developer’s Toolkit collection right now, today, without delay. Hopefully you are already using Firebug, but there are a bunch of other add-ons in this collection that you might not be using already and you really should be.
And if I can provide one more piece of advice today – learn to use the tools you have available to you. Every day I see software developers doing things the hard way, particularly when it comes to debugging issues. There is a cornucopia of tools out there to help you do your job and if you know how to use them and you know what issues they will help you solve, you will instantly become a better developer – more efficient, more productive, more reliable, more dependable – perhaps, dare I say it, a craftsman.
Imagine an Electrician who carried around a whole toolbox of tools, but only knows how to use a screwdriver and a hammer – he can probably complete most tasks with those two tools, but he is probably going to disappoint his customers and not make much money as a contractor.
So, in summary, get some decent add-ons for Firefox to help you be a better Web Developer, and then actually take the time to learn how to use them. Easy.
While real people will use your really bad product because they are paid to use it, if it is a good product with decent behavior, productivity will climb. You can walk into any organization and spot the SAP users – they are crying in the corner. You can’t tell me that that’s good for business.
- Alan Cooper
(from “An Insurgence of Quality”)
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