Better Software Magazine Articles

Traditional Test Engineering, Your Days Are Numbered

In the first installment of this article, Dr. James Whittaker discussed turning testing on its head—to revitalize and improve the value of late-stage testing. James also discussed ideas behind empowering your dogfooders, testers, and the crowd to significantly and efficiently improve software quality. In part two, Jason Arbon discusses the research and engineering experimentation behind realizing these ideas into new tools and processes.

Jason Arbon's picture Jason Arbon
Simplify Your Combinatorial Testing

Combinatorial testing is effective for testing multiple, non-sequential inputs that affect a common output in complex software. But, it's easy to misapply it or become a slave to the output. Learn to overcome limitations and benefit fully from this technique.

Bj Rollison's picture Bj Rollison
IDEs and Build Scripts

Teams benefit from using both IDEs like Eclipse and integration tools like Maven. Steve Berczuk discusses the risks that can occur when IDEs and build scripts diverge, and provides guidelines for keeping the two consistent, so that teams can be more productive.

Steve Berczuk's picture Steve Berczuk
Let's Talk Agile

Agile development employs more oral communication, feedback, and interaction than traditional development. These communication tools can help ease the transition into the more interactive agile team relationship.

Ken Pugh's picture Ken Pugh
Tools for Our Time

Software development has really changed over the years, and programming languages have evolved along with it. Learn more about D, one of today's more interesting languages; it's a high-level, type-safe language with the efficiency of C++ and the convenience of Java.

Chuck Allison's picture Chuck Allison
The Power of Low-Tech Tools

The level of technology that goes into a tool is only as valuable as the service that you, as a user, get out of that tool. Some low-tech tools--such as the four that Esther Derby lists here--have a place in the technologist's toolbox, too.

Esther Derby's picture Esther Derby
An Elephant in the Room

We make software so that people can use it. Yet these users are so hard to define that they are often simply ignored. This six-step approach to Interaction Design can help you bring your customers down to size so that you can provide the right product for them.

Jeff Patton's picture Jeff Patton
A Look at McCabe IQ: Metrics Analysis and Code Coverage

Gedaliah Friedenberg encourages developers and development managers to use the McCabe IQ tool to enhance their development process and deliver better software to QA.

TechWell Contributor's picture TechWell Contributor
Automating Requirements Traceability

Developing software to meet users' specific needs can be a difficult task. Verification and validation activities can help ensure that you are building the right software right.

Bill Councill
In Search of Defect Tracking Systems

Defect tracking systems influence business-critical decisions. Building and installing a corporate-wide defect tracking system takes a small but well-balanced development team. Your implementation may be as simple as opening the package and typing "setup" or it may take months of programming. Here's how to find and implement the right system for your organization.

Bob Johnson

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