Better Software Magazine Archive:

December 2006

IN THIS ISSUE

The Scoop on Employment Trends in 2006
By Heather Shanholtzer

Hundreds of Better Software magazine readers and StickyMinds.com users logged on and gave us the scoop on the industry's employment outlook. Find out how your software engineering peers responded to our annual salary survey.
 

Happy Are the Software Engineers
By Miska Hiltunen

Miska Hiltunen takes a look at his own Tick-the-Code Inspection, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's study of happiness, and how you can cultivate quality through practical methods of empowering your software engineers to improve their own work.

The Ajax Balancing Act
By Tod Golding

The path to Ajax has its pitfalls, but using it carefully can put you ahead of the game. Tod Golding offers some tips to help you investigate the world of Ajax solutions, technologies, frameworks, and patterns and find a balance between an enhanced user experience and a robust application.

Believing Is Seeing
By Lee Copeland

What you don't know can hurt you, and what you do know can too. Lee Copeland takes a look at how the results of a 1949 Harvard experiment with playing cards should influence the way you evaluate your previous experience when building software

Is There an Assessment in the House? Diagnosing Test Process Ailments in House
By Ruud Teunissen

When you're not feeling well, you go to the doctor for a checkup. If your organization's test process isn't working as well as you'd like, you should give it the same treatment. Ruud Teunissen offers advice on performing an in-house test process assessment.

Marine Corps Maxims: Principles for Building Strong Test Teams
By Sean Buck

The value the U.S. Marine Corps places on teamwork can improve your software development team as well. Former USMC member Sean Buck shares how correctly applying Marine Corps principles will lead the way toward better, more effective test teams.

Rock, Paper, Scissors: How Testers Uncover Hidden Requirements
By Michael Bolton

The requirements process is not a linear one. In this article, Michael Bolton helps you get in the game by showing how the elements of the requirements process–reference, inference, and conference–interact and influence each other.

In Search of Commitment Clarity
By Michele Sliger

When planning your workload, it's easy to bite off more than you can chew. But as Michele Sliger explains in this tale of one overachiever's attempt to take on too much work, overcommitting yourself means overcommitting your team.

Changing the Hand You're Dealt: Better Designs Through Problem Redefinition
By Payson Hall

Spending a little more time in design can help minimize the complexity of debugging and maximize the likelihood that the elements of a project will come together in the end. Payson Hall uses a parable and a program fragment to show how small changes to the problem can simplify the solution.

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