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• Programming language features that help to catch bugs early

  - by Christian Neumanns

  Do you know any programming language features that help to detect bugs early in the software development process - ideally at compile-time or else as early as possible at run-time? Examples of well-known and effective bug-reducing features are: Static typing and generic types: type incompatibility errors are detected by the compiler Design by Contract (TM), also called Contract Programming: invalid values are quickly detected at runtime (through preconditions, postconditions and class invariants) Unit testing I ask this question in the context of improving an object-oriented programming language (called Obix) which has been designed from the ground up to 'make it easy to quickly write reliable code'. Besides the features mentioned above this language also incorporates other Fail-fast features such as: Objects are immutable by default Void (null) values are not allowed by default The aim is to add more Fail-fast concepts to the language. If you know other features which help to write less error-prone code then please let us know. Thank you.

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• What simple techniques do you use to improve performance?

  - by Cristian

  I'm talking about the way we write simple routines in order to improve performance without making your code harder to read... for instance, this is the typical for we learned: for(int i = 0; i < collection.length(); i++ ){ // stuff here } But, I usually do this when a foreach is not applicable: for(int i = 0, j = collection.length(); i < j; i++ ){ // stuff here } I think this is a better approach since it will call the length method once only... my girlfriend says it's cryptic though. Is there any other simple trick you use on your own developments?

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• If your unit test code "smells" does it really matter?

  - by Buttons840

  Usually I just throw my unit tests together using copy and paste and all kind of other bad practices. The unit tests usually end up looking quite ugly, they're full of "code smell," but does this really matter? I always tell myself as long as the "real" code is "good" that's all that matters. Plus, unit testing usually requires various "smelly hacks" like stubbing functions. How concerned should I be over poorly designed ("smelly") unit tests?

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• HP openview servicedesk: looking for api information ?

  - by Zagorulkin Dmitry

  Good day folks. I am very confused in this situation. I need to implement system which will be based on HP open view service desk 4.5 api. But this system are reached the end of supporting period. On oficial site no information available I am looking an information about this API(articles, samples etc). Now i have only web-api.jar and javadoc. Methods in javadoc is bad documented. If you have any info, please share it with me. Thanks. Second question: there are methods for api(with huge amount of methods) understanding if it not documented or information is not available? PS:If it question is not belong here i will delete it.

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• What's the best algorithm for... [closed]

  - by Paska

  Hi programmers! Today come out a little problem. I have an array of coordinates (latitude and longitude) maded in this way: [0] = "45.01234,9.12345" [1] = "46.11111,9.12345" [2] = "47.22222,9.98765" [...] etc In a loop, convert these coordinates in meters (UTM northing / UTM easting) and after that i convert these coords in pixel (X / Y) on screen (the output device is an iphone) to draw a route line on a custom map. [0] = "512335.00000,502333.666666" [...] etc The returning pixel are passed to a method that draw a line on screen (simulating a route calculation). [0] = "20,30" [1] = "21,31" [2] = "25,40" [...] etc As coordinate (lat/lon) are too many, i need to truncate lat/lon array eliminating the values that doesn't fill in the map bound (the visible part of map on screen). Map bounds are 2 couple of coords lat/lon, upper left and lower right. Now, what is the best way to loop on this array (NOT SORTED) and check if a value is or not in bound and after remove the value that is outside? To return a clean array that contains only the coords visible on screen? Note: the coords array is a very big array. 4000/5000 couple of items. This is a method that should be looped every drag or zoom. Anyone have an idea to optimize search and controls in this array? many thanks, A

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• Is 'Protection' an acceptable Java class name

  - by jonny

  This comes from a closed thread at stack overflow, where there are already some useful answers, though a commenter suggested I post here. I hope this is ok! I'm trying my best to write good readable, code, but often have doubts in my work! I'm creating some code to check the status of some protected software, and have created a class which has methods to check whether the software in use is licensed (there is a separate Licensing class). I've named the class 'Protection', which is currently accessed, via the creation of an appProtect object. The methods in the class allow to check a number of things about the application, in order to confirm that it is in fact licensed for use. Is 'Protection' an acceptable name for such a class? I read somewhere that if you have to think to long in names of methods, classes, objects etc, then perhaps you may not be coding in an Object Oriented way. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this before making this post, which has lead me to doubt the suitability of the name! In creating (and proof reading) this post, I'm starting to seriously doubt my work so far. I'm also thinking I should probably rename the object to applicationProtection rather than appProtect (though am open to any comments on this too?). I'm posting non the less, in the hope that I'll learn something from others views/opinions, even if they're simply confirming I've "done it wrong"!

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• How to convince management to deal with technical debt?

  - by Desolate Planet

  This is a question that I often ask myself when working with developers. I've worked at four companies so far, and I've noticed a lack of attention to keeping code clean and dealing with technical debt that hinders future progress in a software app. For example, the first company I worked for had written a database from scratch rather than take something like MySQL and that created hell for the team when refacoring or extending the app. I've always tried to be honest and clear with my manager when he discusses projections, but management doesn't seem interested in fixing what's already there and it's horrible to see the impact it has on team morale and in their attitude towards others. What are your thoughts on the best way to tackle this problem? What I've seen is people packing up and leaving and the company becomes a revolving door with developers coming and and out and making the code worse. How do you communicate this to management to get them interested in sorting out technical debt?

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• Are too many assertions code smell?

  - by Florents

  I've really fallen in love with unit testing and TDD - I am test infected. However, unit testing is used for public methods. Sometimes though I do have to test some assumptions-assertions in private methods too, because some of them are "dangerous" and refactoring can't help further. (I know, testing frameworks allo testing private methods). So, It became a habit of mine that (almost always) the first and the last line of a private method are both assertions. I guess this couldn't be bad (right ??). However, I've noticed that I also tend to use assertions in public methods too (as in the private) just "to be sure". Could this be "testing duplication" since the public method assumpotions are tested from the unit testng framework? Could someone think of too many assertions as a code smell?

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• Why USA produces the best / most popular software? [closed]

  - by user1598390

  Have you noticed that a disproportionate amount of popular software products comes from the USA ? Examples: iOS, OS X, Phosothop, Oracle, Windows, Final Cut Pro, MS Office, iTunes, iWorks Suite, iLife Suite, AutoCad, Aperture, Google search engine, Twitter and endless stream of software that are the best in their fields and that are the models the rest of the industry want to emulate. Few people would deny that the most popular software comes from American companies. Obviously there's plenty of good software coming from outside the US, like Linux or SAP but most great looking, killer software comes from USA. Maybe these companies outsource the code elsewhere but the inception and design is mostly done in the USA. Why is that? and, can it be replicated elsewhere given the correct "ingredients" ?

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• Duplication of code (backend and javascript - knockout)

  - by Michal B.

  We have a new developer in our team. He seems a smart guy (he just came in so I cannot really judge). He started with implementing some small enhancements in the project (MVC3 web application using javascript - jquery and knockout). Let's say we have two values: A - quite complex calculation C - constant B = A + C On the screen there is value B and user can change it (normal texbox). When B changes, A changes as well because C is constant. So there is linear dependency between A and B. Now, all the calculations are done in the backend, but we need to recalculate A as user changes B (in js, I would use knockout). I thought about storing old A and B and when B changes by 10 then we know that new A will be old A + 10. He says this is dirty, because it's duplication of code (we make use of the fact that they are dependent and according to him that should be only in one place in our app). I understand it's not ideal, but making AJAX request after every key press seems a bit too much. It's a really small thing and I would not post if we haven't had long discussion about it. How do you deal with such problems? Also I can imagine that using knockout implies lots of calculations on the client side, which very often leads to duplication of the same calculations from the backend. Does anyone have links to some articles/thoughts on this topic?

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• Are flag variables an absolute evil?

  - by dukeofgaming

  I remember doing a couple of projects where I totally neglected using flags and ended up with better architecture/code; however, it is a common practice in other projects I work at, and when code grows and flags are added, IMHO code-spaghetti also grows. Would you say there are any cases where using flags is a good practice or even necessary?, or would you agree that using flags in code are... red flags and should be avoided/refactored; me, I just get by with doing functions/methods that check for states in real time instead. Edit: Not talking about compiler flags

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• Method flags as arguments or as member variables?

  - by Martin

  I think the title "Method flags as arguments or as member variables?" may be suboptimal, but as I'm missing any better terminology atm., here goes: I'm currently trying to get my head around the problem of whether flags for a given class (private) method should be passed as function arguments or via member variable and/or whether there is some pattern or name that covers this aspect and/or whether this hints at some other design problems. By example (language could be C++, Java, C#, doesn't really matter IMHO): class Thingamajig { private ResultType DoInternalStuff(FlagType calcSelect) { ResultType res; for (... some loop condition ...) { ... if (calcSelect == typeA) { ... } else if (calcSelect == typeX) { ... } else if ... } ... return res; } private void InteralStuffInvoker(FlagType calcSelect) { ... DoInternalStuff(calcSelect); ... } public void DoThisStuff() { ... some code ... InternalStuffInvoker(typeA); ... some more code ... } public ResultType DoThatStuff() { ... some code ... ResultType x = DoInternalStuff(typeX); ... some more code ... further process x ... return x; } } What we see above is that the method InternalStuffInvoker takes an argument that is not used inside this function at all but is only forwarded to the other private method DoInternalStuff. (Where DoInternalStuffwill be used privately at other places in this class, e.g. in the DoThatStuff (public) method.) An alternative solution would be to add a member variable that carries this information: class Thingamajig { private ResultType DoInternalStuff() { ResultType res; for (... some loop condition ...) { ... if (m_calcSelect == typeA) { ... } ... } ... return res; } private void InteralStuffInvoker() { ... DoInternalStuff(); ... } public void DoThisStuff() { ... some code ... m_calcSelect = typeA; InternalStuffInvoker(); ... some more code ... } public ResultType DoThatStuff() { ... some code ... m_calcSelect = typeX; ResultType x = DoInternalStuff(); ... some more code ... further process x ... return x; } } Especially for deep call chains where the selector-flag for the inner method is selected outside, using a member variable can make the intermediate functions cleaner, as they don't need to carry a pass-through parameter. On the other hand, this member variable isn't really representing any object state (as it's neither set nor available outside), but is really a hidden additional argument for the "inner" private method. What are the pros and cons of each approach?

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• Functional testing in the verification

  - by user970696

  Yesterday my question How come verification does not include actual testing? created a lot of controversy, yet did not reveal the answer for related and very important question: does black box functional testing done by testers belong to verification or validation? ISO 12207:12208 here mentiones testing explicitly only as a validation activity, however, it speaks about validation of requirements of the intended use. For me its more high level, like UAT test cases written by business users ISO mentioned above does not mention any specific verification (7.2.4.3.2)except for Requirement verification, Design verification, Document and Code & Integration verification. The last two can be probably thought as unit and integrated testing. But where is then the regular testing done by testers at the end of the phase? The book I mentioned in the original question mentiones that verification is done by static techniques, yet on the V model graph it describes System testing against high level description as a verification, mentioning it includes all kinds of testing like functional, load etc. In the IEEE standard for V&V, you can read this: Even though the tests and evaluations are not part of the V&V processes, the techniques described in this standard may be useful in performing them. So that is different than in ISO, where validation mentiones testing as the activity. Not to mention a lot of contradicting information on the net. I would really appreciate a reference to e.g. a standard in the answer or explanation of what I missed in the ISO. For me, I am unable to tell where the testers work belong.

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• Is micro-optimisation important when coding?

  - by BozKay

  I recently asked a question on stackoverflow.com to find out why isset() was faster than strlen() in php. This raised questions around the importance of readable code and whether performance improvements of micro-seconds in code were worth even considering. My father is a retired programmer, I showed him the responses and he was absolutely certain that if a coder does not consider performance in their code even at the micro level, they are not good programmers. I'm not so sure - perhaps the increase in computing power means we no longer have to consider these kind of micro-performance improvements? Perhaps this kind of considering is up to the people who write the actual language code? (of php in the above case). The environmental factors could be important - the internet consumes 10% of the worlds energy, I wonder how wasteful a few micro-seconds of code is when replicated trillions of times on millions of websites? I'd like to know answers preferably based on facts about programming. Is micro-optimisation important when coding? EDIT : My personal summary of 25 answers, thanks to all. Sometimes we need to really worry about micro-optimisations, but only in very rare circumstances. Reliability and readability are far more important in the majority of cases. However, considering micro-optimisation from time to time doesn't hurt. A basic understanding can help us not to make obvious bad choices when coding such as if (expensiveFunction() && counter < X) Should be if (counter < X && expensiveFunction()) (example from @zidarsk8) This could be an inexpensive function and therefore changing the code would be micro-optimisation. But, with a basic understanding, you would not have to because you would write it correctly in the first place.

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• Verification of requirements question

  - by user970696

  Doing a lot of reading about V&V, I would need to clarify the following. A lot of definitons (less formal ones found in books) define verification like that: Verification: The software should conform to its specification. But then they speak about requirement verification, design verification etc. If I say that these items are "software" in terms of applying the definitons, what should I checked them against, what specification should requirements, which is the basic information, conform to? And one more thing: shouldnt be requirements also validated? To make sure they meets the customer needs? All texts I have speak only about SW validation on the end of the dev.process..

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• Getting out of my head

  - by BenCole

  (I put this on SO, but it got a couple close votes saying it belonged here instead...) I've spent the last year as a single person team developing a rich-client application (35,000+ LoC, for what it's worth). It's currently stable and in production. However, I know that my skills were rusty at the beginning of the project, so without a doubt there are major issues to the code. At this point, most of the issues are in architecture, structure, or interactions - the easy problems, even architecture/design problems, have already been weeded out. Unfortunately, I've spent so much time with this project that I'm having a hard time thinking outside of it - approaching it from a new perspective to see the flaws deeply buried or inherent in the design. How do I step outside my head and outside my code so I can get a fresh look at this code so I can make it better? Is this less of an issue than I think it is, or is this a problem for other people as well?

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• How do you overcome your own coding biases when handed legacy code?

  - by Bryan M.

  As programmers, we often take incredible pride in our skills and hold very strong opinions about what is 'good' code and 'bad' code. At any given point in our careers, we've probably had some legacy system dropped in our laps, and thought 'My god, this code sucks!' because it didn't fit into our notion of what good code should be, despite the fact that it may have well been perfectly functional, maintainable code. How do you prepare yourself mentally when trying to get your head around another programmer's work?

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• What is the politically correct way of refactoring other's code?

  - by dukeofgaming

  I'm currently working in a geographically distributed team in a big company. Everybody is just focused on today's tasks and getting things done, however this means sometimes things have to be done the quick way, and that causes problems... you know, same old, same old. I'm bumping into code with several smells such as: big functions pointless utility functions/methods (essentially just to save writing a word), overcomplicated algorithms, extremely big files that should be broken down into different files/classes (1,500+ lines), etc. What would be the best way of improving code without making other developers feel bad/wrong about any proposed improvements?

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• How come verification does not include actual testing?

  - by user970696

  Having read a lot about this topic, I still did not get it. Verification should prove that you are building the product right, while validation you build the right product. But only static techniques are mentioned as being verification methods (code reviews, requirements checks...). But how can you say if its implemented correctly if you do not test it? It is said that verification checks e.g. code for its correctnes. Verification - ensure that the product meet specified requirements. Again, if the function is specified to work somehow, only by testing I can say that it does. Could anyone explain this to me please? EDIT: As Wiki says: Verification:Preparing of the test cases (based on the analysis of the requireemnts) Validation: Running of the test cases

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• After how much line of code a function should be break down?

  - by Sumeet

  While working on existing code base, I usually come across procedures that contain Abusive use of IF and Switch statements. The procedures consist of overwhelming code, which I think require re-factoring badly. The situation gets worse when I identify that some of these are recursive as well. But this is always a matter of debate as the code is working fine and no one wants to wake up the dragon. But, everyone accepts it is very expensive code to manage. I am wondering if are any recommendations to determine if a particular Method is a culprit and needs a revisit/rewrite , so that it can broken down or polymophized in an effective manner. Are there any Metrics (like no. of lines in procedure) that can be used to identify such segment of code. The checklist or advice to convince everyone, will be great!

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• How can I sell a legacy program rewrite to the business?

  - by Wil

  We have a legacy classic ASP application that's been around since 2001. It badly needs to be re-written, but it's working fine from an end user perspective. The reason I feel like a rewrite is necessary is that when we need to update it (which is admittedly not that often) then it takes forever to go through all the spaghetti code and fix problems. Also, adding new features is also a pain since it was architect-ed and coded badly. I've run cost analysis for them on maintenance but they are willing to spend more for the small maintenance jobs than a rewrite. Any suggestions on convincing them otherwise?

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• System testing - making sure the system conforms to specification. Validation?

  - by user970696

  After weeks of research I have nearly completed my thesis, yet I am unable to clear up my confusion contained in all previous threads here (and in many books): During system testing, we check the system function against system analysis (functional system design) - but that would fit to a definition of verification according to many books. But I follow ISO12207, which considers all testing as validation (making sure work product meets requirement for intended use). How can I justify that unit testing or system testing is validation, even though when I check it against specification? Which fullfils the definiton of verification? When testing that e.g. "Save button" works, is it validation? This picture shows my understanding of V&V, so different from many other sources, including ISTQB etc. Essential problem I have is that a book using the same picture also states on another place that: test activities in the area of validation are usability, alpha and beta testing. For verification, testable system requirements are defined whose correct implementation can be tested through system tests. Isn't that the opposite of what the picture says? Most books present the following picture, where validation is just making sure that customer needs are satisfied. Mind you that according to ISO, validation activity is testing.

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• Modelling highly specific business requirements

  - by AndyBursh

  How can one go about modelling highly specific business requirements, which have no precedent in the system? Take for example the following requirement: When a purchase order contains N lines, is over X value in total and is being recorded against project Y, an email needs to be sent to persons A and B with the details This requirement supplements other requirements surrounding purchase orders, but comes in at a much later date in response to some ongoing problem elsewhere in the business. Persons A and B are not part of any role or group in the system, and don't hold any specific responsibility; they are simply the two people the business has appointed to receive these emails in this very specific case. Projects are also data driven, so project Y has no special properties to distinguish it from any other project. The only way to identify it is to compare its identifier to a magic number. How can one go about modelling this kind of case without introducing too much additional complexity? That I can think of right now, there are a couple of options. Perform the checks and actions inline with the existing code. Here we find the correct spot in the code, check the conditions in the requirement and send the emails to hardcoded addresses. Of course this is fraught with issues. At the very least it stops working if one of these people leaves or changes their email address. At worst you have to ensure that any tests and test data are aware that additional actions are taken for a specific set of criteria. Introduce some form of events system. Here we introduce an eventing system, so that we might react to some event, and fulfil the requirement outside of the usual path of execution. This sounds like a cleaner solution than option 1, but the work involved is ultimately probably slightly overkill for this one small requirement. That said, having it in place does allow the system to handle these kinds of specific requirements consistently and easily in the future. Are there any other (good/better) ways of handling highly specific requirements? I mean other than telling the other parts of the business no!

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• One-week release cycle: how do I make this feasible?

  - by Arkaaito

  At my company (3-yr-old web industry startup), we have frequent problems with the product team saying "aaaah this is a crisis patch it now!" (doesn't everybody?) This has an impact on the productivity (and morale) of engineering staff, self included. Management has spent some time thinking about how to reduce the frequency of these same-day requests and has come up with the solution that we are going to have a release every week. (Previously we'd been doing one every two weeks, which usually slipped by a couple of days or so.) There are 13 developers and 6 local / 9 offshore testers; the theory is that only 4 developers (and all testers) will work on even-numbered releases, unless a piece of work comes up that really requires some specific expertise from one of the other devs. Each cycle will contain two days of dev work and two days of QA work (plus 1 day of scoping / triage / ...). My questions are: (a) Does anyone have experience with this length of release cycle? (b) Has anyone heard of this length of release cycle even being attempted? (c) If (a) or (b), how on Earth do you make it work? (Any pitfalls to avoid, etc., are also appreciated.) (d) How can we minimize the damage if this effort fails?

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• Copy-and-Pasted Test Code: How Bad is This?

  - by joshin4colours

  My current job is mostly writing GUI test code for various applications that we work on. However, I find that I tend to copy and paste a lot of code within tests. The reason for this is that the areas I'm testing tend to be similar enough to need repetition but not quite similar enough to encapsulate code into methods or objects. I find that when I try to use classes or methods more extensively, tests become more cumbersome to maintain and sometimes outright difficult to write in the first place. Instead, I usually copy a big chunk of test code from one section and paste it to another, and make any minor changes I need. I don't use more structured ways of coding, such as using more OO-principles or functions. Do other coders feel this way when writing test code? Obviously I want to follow DRY and YAGNI principles, but I find that test code (automated test code for GUI testing anyway) can make these principles tough to follow. Or do I just need more coding practice and a better overall system of doing things? EDIT: The tool I'm using is SilkTest, which is in a proprietary language called 4Test. As well, these tests are mostly for Windows desktop applications, but I also have tested web apps using this setup as well.

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