Common sense software development

I have put a my thoughts about a 'common sense software development' in presentation.  This doesnot follow any set methodology.

It is available  at
http://www.geocities.com/nitinbhide/NitinsCommonSenseSoftDev.pdf

I will appreciate some feedback/advice/constructive criticism.

Nitin

Nitin Bhide
Friday, January 23, 2004

Is the link wrong? I get a "page not available" msg.

m
Friday, January 23, 2004

I just checked again.  I could open it through IE and Mozilla both.  Link seems to be working.

http://www.geocities.com/nitinbhide/NitinsCommonSenseSoftDev.pdf

Nitin Bhide
Friday, January 23, 2004

The direct link you posted didn't work for me - however http://www.geocities.com/nitinbhide/ did work and I could get to the pdf from there.

A cynic writes
Friday, January 23, 2004

Go up a level  (chop off the file name)

That'll bring you the default HTML.  Then follow that link.

that's how I got it.

Overall, honestly, I wasn't all that impressed.  If you do all those things without version control, for example, you're in trouble.  I think you need to figure out who your potential audience is an tailor your presentation to that.  If they are people working in Industry who know about version control, specs, and schedules, then It could be a cool 'Don't violate these common sense rules' kind of presentation.

If it's newbies, I think you need more basic software engineering stuff. 

HOWEVER, I did see one awesome quote:
"If you don't like unit testing your product, most likely your customers won't like to test it either."

AWESOME QUOTE.  That made the whole thing worth it.

regards,

Matt H.
Friday, January 23, 2004

Actually the 'Common Sense SoftDev' was prepared to consolidate my understanding and thoughts without than any specific target audience in mind.  I though it come out well, hence put it on site.

It was DEFINITELY NOT for newbies. If I want to present it, My target audience will be people with some development experience (1 to 2 years).

For Newbies I have another presentation on the site 'Good Developers' which talks about the characteristics of Good Developers.

Nitin Bhide
Friday, January 23, 2004

Nitin,

I think the best part of your 'presentation' is the focus on USEABILITY. (I.e. "one click",  "know your customer" , etc.) are really about making sure the features and interface of the program meets customer needs.

And that is the most important factor SUCCESSFUL software.

I'm not a great CODER or even architect. But I do a very good job of specing out the requirements.  So, that can allow me to cut my task size in half, by eliminating features that don't meet customer needs.

Thus I can be a mediocre "coder", but a successful software developer.


How many times have you seen something added to a product (software or otherwise) that is so poorly done or so uneccessary that it REDUCES the value of the product?

Not only did they waste resources on the feature, but they then had to work HARDER on OTHER aspects of the product to COMPENSATE for the annoyance the feature causes.

"Put all your wood behind your arrowhead"
- Larry Ellison

The real Entrepreneur
Friday, January 23, 2004

Looks like the site has exceeded its max bandwidth - can anyone post this elsewhere?

GiorgioG
Friday, January 23, 2004

A guy posts link to his article on JoS. It gets marked as BOLD. And the website where his article is present becomes in accessible because of so many click-throughs!

Is JoS turning in to Slashdot??? ;)

JD
http://jdk.phpkid.org/

JD
Friday, January 23, 2004

Yahoo groups is quite fragile. Just a few hundred kb in an hour will trigger its shutdown mechanism... unless you pony up with cash for a pro account. Clever, yah?

Dennis Atkins
Friday, January 23, 2004

r/yahoo groups/yahoo geocities/

Dennis Atkins
Friday, January 23, 2004

You wrote that the one click of Amazon "is a major of factor to make is popular" which I read meaning you think the use of one-click made Amazon popular. I would HIGHLY disagree with that. Other than this there wasn't much I haven't seen elsewhere and I stopped reading at that point. I would suggest paying a native English writer to fix it for you. Not bad stuff though.

Me
Friday, January 23, 2004

Its interesting material, most of which I've seen before.. but its nice to see all of it in one presentation.. Dont necesarily agree with the Amazon one-click thing myself, but I can see your point .. sorta ..

More like this .. if anyone hasnt seen "How to become a programmer "... go to http://samizdat.mines.edu/howto

Its more "common sense" stuff, but from a developer perspective. Lots of it is like Nitin's material..

/threadjacks'r'us

deja vu
Friday, January 23, 2004

After a quick e-mail exchange with Nitin, I have put a copy of his presentation on a site with less bandwidth restrictions than its current geocities home.

http://www.sumimasen.com/NitinsCommonSenseSoftDev.pdf

Please let me know if you have any trouble accessing from here.

Robin Birtle
Sunday, January 25, 2004

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