Better Software Magazine

Better Software Magazine Articles

It's January 1, 2000 . . . What Have You Overlooked?

You have a Y2K effort in place, and it's all about preparation for an event you know is coming. What have you overlooked that’s going to bite you? This article will help give you 20-20 foresight to anticipate potential "gotchas."

Robin F. Goldsmith
Packaged-Software Indigestion

Vendor reviews are a wonderful technique to taste before you swallow commercial, off-the-shelf software. They're also a great way to build a partnership with your business decision-makers on packaged-software projects, instead of being brought in late or left out completely. Here are some important things to consider when conducting a vendor review.

Eileen M. Strider
Anticipating Human Error

This article makes three points. First, errors happen. Second, systems can encourage errors. Third, a basic understanding of the kinds of errors humans make can help us design better systems. Here are some suggestions to help avert trouble.
 

Ramon M. Felciano
A Recipe for Success: Ingredients for Building a Great Software Team

Great people, interesting work, and smart referees make for a successful software team. Bobbie Patnode recommends some ways to keep your team engaged, including treating them well, paying them well, and training them well.

Bobbie Patnode
Web Load Test Planning

Predicting how a particular Web site will respond to a specific load is a real challenge. Here are three basic steps necessary to design highly realistic and accurate Web site load tests.

Alberto Savoia
Reporting Systems: Tracking the Details

If you're paying the bill for all the graphics, glitz, and applets, you're going to want to have some evidence that thousands of potential customers have actually seen your Web site. Here is a step-by-step recipe for testing system, network, and Internet reporting systems.

Len DiMaggio
Application Integration

Building an integrated suite of applications can be complicated, especially when several groups are working on the project in different locations. Here are some risks, as well as recommendations for allowing planning, development, and testing artifacts to be shared between disparate groups.

Sam Guckenheimer
Untangling Communication

Software development involves sharing critical ideas in a hectic, high-pressure environment. If you want your team to excel in its software projects, it's important to understand the communication circuitry at work in your everyday interactions. Here's a look at the components of the communication process, and five common errors to avoid.

Dale Emery's picture Dale Emery
Adventures in Automated Testing

Sometimes the best teacher is experience. Here's a look at four real-life projects, each with a different problem domain, testing approach, and test tool, and the lessons they offered in automatic test generation.

Pete TerMaat
Test Design: Developing Test Cases from Use Cases

A use case is a sequence of actions performed by a system, which combined together produce a result of value to a system user. Use cases describe the "process flows" through a system based on its actual likely use, so the test cases derived from use cases are most useful in uncovering defects in the process flows during real-world use of the system. Here is an example of how a use case is used to derive and prioritize test cases.

Ross Collard's picture Ross Collard

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