Software Development

There are 92 posts filed in Software Development (this is page 6 of 10).

Is there still hope for COBOL programmers?

Recently, Joseph Steinberg noted  that the governor of New Jersey put out a call for COBOL programmers to assist in updating or fixing business applications being used by the state for unemployment applications. I last wrote about this in June 2019 , after seeing an article about COBOL expertise being still in demand by financial institutions. I decided to look and see if there were any resources available for someone to get familiar with COBOL. It turns out that Micro Force is a company that has up-to-date COBOL development environments and compilers, OpenSource.com lists several compilers available (gnuCOBOL seems to be the significant one (documentation here)), and there is a beginning COBOL programming book available from Apress. Looks like there may be some opportunity here (at least according to Indeed.com ….).

Paying for the development of software

I recently read a post on funding of software developed for academic/research use, the author stated that many grants are for new applications, and that funding agencies should consider supporting existing open source software that goes unfunded. There were links to papers such as the development of AstroPy, and a report by Nadia Eghbal on funding of Internet digital infrastructure development.  I have touched on this topic before in a recent post about the development/funding story of the Node Package Manager. All of these stories touch on some common problems:

  • People write software, put it out on the web, people use it or they don’t.
  • If a lot of people start using it, and start asking for features/fixes, how do those get done? How do the developers get reimbursed for their time and effort?
  • What if a business uses open source software at no direct cost? How can they depend on that software being supported and available?

Businesses that develop physical products that contain custom software pay for that software as part of the development cost of the product. This may be the best example of funding for software development.

To me, the idea of a subscription fee makes the most sense. The user paying a fee gets a specified level of support, for example, or early access to new versions. The developer gets a steadier stream of income than one-time payments (like for smartphone apps). There are other problems to address that I am not going to solve in this post, but people who develop applications should consider these topics before starting (they should “count the costs”).

 

 

Node.js resources and other things

Freshman.tech – How to build your first website with Express and Pug

Codeburst.io – How to build a Node Weather App with 16 Lines of Code (Part 1)

Codeburst.io – Build a Weather Website in 30 minutes with Node, Express, and Open Weather

Codeburst.io – Three courses for learning Node.io

Codeburst.io – Learn Javascript by building a game

Codeburst.io – AI in the browser

Infinite Red Academy – AI Demystified – free 5 day course

 

The economics of open source development

Recently, I watched a video from JSConf.EU by CJ Silverio on the economics of open source development. She recounted the story of the start of Node.js and the Node Package Manager (NPM), and how the creator of Node.js gave the source code to the Node Foundation, but the creator of Node Package Manager retained all rights and created a company to continue development of NPM and took VC money. The video is a good watch, with lots of excellent examples on how business get value from open source software, but don’t (in general) pay anything for the software (either development or support costs). My additions to this video: (1) people who want to make money from the software they create should think hard about how they are going to do that before they start releasing that software, and (2) people who use open source for profit should invest some of their profits in keeping the wheels of progress turning (pay the developers something), otherwise the supply may dry up.

Is good code boring?

Juraj Malenica writes saying “You should develop boring code”. His post highlights the following:

  • Make your code readable
  • Keep your code predictable
  • Your code is your documentation

If we take these as attributes of “boring code”, are these also attributes of “good code”? Let’s take a look.

Code readability (the ability to understand a source code function) is a good one. For most of my career, I have been working with existing code bases, and ability to understand what has been done before is very important. Working in the avionics industry, requirements and traceability go a long way towards helping understanding legacy software. If this is not available, avoiding the use of difficult-to-understand coding techniques can enhance readability.

In Juraj’s post, code predictability covers naming conventions for parameters/functions/files. For the projects I have worked on, coding standards help to define these conventions. Juraj mentioned a Python standard, there are many available.

Finally, code as documentation is a good goal. If there is no other project documentation, the source code should contain all the information necessary for another developer/engineer to pick up the code and add new features.

After this review, I would say these “boring” elements are also included in code that would be considered “good”. Is this everything needed? No (it is necessary, but not sufficent), but this is a good start.

How can we work together on the open web and on software development

I have been in several conversations in the last week (voice and email) where the concept of “working together” in software development came up, and several threads emerged:

  • how the original developer doesn’t/shouldn’t have to do everything – others can contribute (to me, a key concept in open source)
  • how interested/engaged users can be an important force in the direction in which a software application or tool goes forward

Dave Winer has written about this many times:

I have tried to follow that second point in several ways:

I am getting ready to start working in the computer music area again after a long absence, and I am reviewing available tools to see if they fit the areas I am interested in. In that way, I am trying to practice the concepts of working together as I have outlined above.

Anyone want to work together with me? Let me know!

Is Agile “over”?

A recent Forbes article by Kurt Cagle talks about whether the end of Agile has been reached. One quote at the top of the article was a key one:

This was no longer a methodology. It had become a religion, and like most religions it really didn’t make that much sense to the outsider – or even to the participants, when it got right down to it.

If anyone using Agile concepts has gotten to the state mentioned above, I agree that “it’s over!”. We are using Scrum at my workplace, and we have done some streamlining of the overall practice to meet our needs. So far, I would say it is working well for us. However, if I ever see the “hockey stick” mentioned at the beginning of this article, or any “religious practices”, I’ll be raising my hand to say “WAIT A MINUTE!”….