Search Results

Search found 9381 results on 376 pages for 'vs macros'.

Page 31/376 | < Previous Page | 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38  | Next Page >

• Microsoft Terminology: .NET C++ vs. traditional C++

  - by Mike Clark

  I've recently been working with a team that's using both .NET C++ and pre-.NET C++. I fully understand the technical differences between the two technologies. However, I sometimes feel like I'm floundering when it comes to the terminology used to differentiate the two. Example: Say we have two projects: ProjectA contains "C++" code that builds a .NET assembly DLL. ProjectB contains Visual C++ code that builds a traditional native Windows DLL. What is the best way to succinctly and terminologically draw a distinction between the two projects? Again, I'm not asking for an in-depth technical description of the differences between the two technologies. I'm just looking for names and labels. This is how, today, I might try to make the distinction when talking to someone: "ProjectA is a managed .NET C++ project" and "ProjectB is an unmanaged native C++ DLL project." However I am not at all certain that this terminology is ideal, or even correct. Please describe what you feel the ideal language to use in this situation (or similar situations) might be. Feel free to motivate your answer.

  Read the article

• Choosing between two programmers: experience vs. passion

  - by Duke

  I am in a position where I have to hire a programmer and have the option of 2 candidates, the first has experience but he doesn't have a passion for coding and he says so while the second doesn't have the experience but he has the passion, he did well in the interview and is certified. We have the resources to train someone, but I really don't want to blow this process and hire someone who will be disappointing can anyone help me as to how to approach this situation.

  Read the article

• Abstract class + Inheritance vs Interface

  - by RealityDysfunction

  Hello fellow programmers, I am reading a book on C# and the author is comparing Abstract classes and Interfaces. He claims that if you have the following "abstract class:" abstract class CloneableType { public abstract object Clone(); } Then you cannot do this: public class MiniVan : Car, CloneableType {} This, I understand. However he claims that because of this inability to do multiple inheritance that you should use an interface for CloneableType, like so: public interface ICloneable { object Clone(); } My question is, isn't this somewhat misleading, because you can create an abstract class which is "above" class Car with the method Clone, then have Car inherit that class and then Minivan will inherit Car with all these methods, CloneAble class - Car class - Minivan Class. What do you think? Thanks.

  Read the article

• Python Coding standards vs. productivity

  - by Shroatmeister

  I work for a large humanitarian organisation, on a project building software that could help save lives in emergencies by speeding up the distribution of food. Many NGOs desperately need our software and we are weeks behind schedule. One thing that worries me in this project is what I think is an excessive focus on coding standards. We write in python/django and use a version of PEP0008, with various modifications e.g. line lengths can go up to 160 chars and all lines should go that long if possible, no blank lines between imports, line wrapping rules that apply only to certain kinds of classes, lots of templates that we must use, even if they aren't the best way to solve a problem etc. etc. One core dev spent a week rewriting a major part of the system to meet the then new coding standards, throwing away several suites of tests in the process, as the rewrite meant they were 'invalid'. We spent two weeks rewriting all the functionality that was lost, and fixing bugs. He is the lead dev and his word carries weight, so he has convinced the project manager that these standards are necessary. The junior devs do as they are told. I sense that the project manager has a strong feeling of cognitive dissonance about all this but nevertheless agrees with it vehemently as he feels unsure what else to do. Today I got in serious trouble because I had forgotten to put some spaces after commas in a keyword argument. I was literally shouted at by two other devs and the project manager during a Skype call. Personally I think coding standards are important but also think that we are wasting a lot of time obsessing with them, and when I verbalized this it provoked rage. I'm seen as a troublemaker in the team, a team that is looking for scapegoats for its failings. Since the introduction of the coding standards, the team's productivity has measurably plummeted, however this only reinforces the obsession, i.e. the lead dev simply blames our non-adherence to standards for the lack of progress. He believes that we can't read each other's code if we don't adhere to the conventions. This is starting to turn sticky. Now I am trying to modify various scripts, autopep8, pep8ify and PythonTidy to try to match the conventions. We also run pep8 against source code but there are so many implicit amendments to our standard that it's hard to track them all. The lead dev simple picks faults that the pep8 script doesn't pick up and shouts at us in the next stand-up meeting. Every week there are new additions to the coding standards that force us to rewrite existing, working, tested code. Thank heavens we still have tests, (I reverted some commits and fixed a bunch of the ones he removed). All the while there is increasing pressure to meet the deadline. I believe a fundamental issue is that the lead dev and another core dev refuse to trust other developers to do their job. But how to deal with that? We can't do our job because we are too busy rewriting everything. I've never encountered this dynamic in a software engineering team. Am I wrong to question their adherence to coding standards? Has anyone else experienced a similar situation and how have they dealt with it successfully? (I'm not looking for a discussion just actual solutions people have found)

  Read the article

• Solid principles vs YAGNI

  - by KeesDijk

  When do the SOLID principles become YAGNI. As programmers we make trade-off's all the time, between complexity, maintainabillity, time to build and so forth.Amongst others. two of the smartest guidelines for making choices are in my mind the SOLID principles and YAGNI. If you don't need it, dont build it and keep it clean. Now for example when i watch the dimecast series on SOLID I see it start out as a fairly simple programm and ending up prettty complex (end yes complexity is also in the eye of the beholder) but it still makes me wonder, when do SOLID principles turn into something you don't need. All solid principles are ways of working that enable use te make changes at a later stage. But what if the problem to solve is a pretty simple one and it's a through away application, than what ? Or are the SOLID principles something that apply always ?

  Read the article

• "My stuff" vs. "Your stuff" in UI texts

  - by JD Isaacks

  When refering to a users stuff should you use My or Your, for example: My Cart | My Account | My Wishlist Or Your Cart | Your Account | Your Wishlist I found this article that argues for the use of your. It says flikr does this. It also says MySpace and MyYahoo are wrong. I also noticed today that Amazon uses the term Your. However, I have heard they are the masters at testing variations and finding the best one, so what you see on their site might be the best variation, or simply something they are currently testing. I personally like the way my looks better, but thats just my opinion. What do you think? What will hever the better impact on customers? Does it really even matter?

  Read the article

• GPL vs plugin interfaces not designed with a specific application in mind

  - by Kristóf Marussy

  I am not seeking or in need of legal advice, but an interesting though experiment came to my mind. Imagine the following situtation (I cannot really think about a concrete example and I am unsure if a real manifestation even exists): there is a free (libre) api A licensed under some permissive license or even LGPL. Non-free application B implements this api in order host plugins, but there are other free software doing the same thing. Moreover, there is plugin C acting as a plugin under api A. It links to library D, that is under GPL, so C is also under GPL. Plugins using A are loaded into hosts via a dlopen-like mechanism and use complex data structure for host-plugin communication. Neither B nor C distribute any files that may be required for A to function properly (like headers containing the structure definitions of A or dynamic libraries containing helper functions for A written by the authors of A), but such things may exist. Now some user installs application B and plugin C on his machine, along with anything that may be required for api A to function properly. Then he proceeds and loads C into B and creates some intellectual property with B which is not a piece of software. Did a GPL violation happend at some point, and if so, who violated GPL and why? The authors of C violate D's license by making C possible to be used in non-free host B? This is a possibility because they can't give and exception of GPL (like one described in http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPluginsInNF or http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingOverControlledInterface) due to D's license terms. The authors of B violate C's and D's license by making C possible to be loaded in B? This is a possibility because http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#NFUseGPLPlugins disallows the mechanisms A uses for communitation between the free and non-free modules. The authors of A, because the api may be used (and in this case, was used) for communication between GPL'd and non-free software. This would be extremely absurd. The user, because at the moment of loading B into C, he made a derived work of C. I think this is impossible, because he does not distribute it. But would the situation change is he decided to release a configuration file of B which makes B load C as a plugin? Nobody, because A counts as a 'system library', and both B and C directly interact only with A, not eachother. In a sane world, this would happen... A concrete example of A could be some kind of audio (think LADSPA) or image processing api. However, I could find no such interface (that is free software, generic and is also implemented by commercial tools). A real-world example could also be quite enlightening.

  Read the article

• Prototype experience: Unity3D vs UDK

  - by LukeN

  Has anyone yet prototyped a game in both Unity3D and UDK? If so, which features made prototyping the game easier or more difficult in each toolkit? Was one prototype demonstrably better than the other (given the same starting assets)? I'm looking for specific answers with regard to using the toolkit features, not a comparison of available features. E.g. Destructable terrain is easier in toolkit X for reasons Y and Z. I can code, so the limitations of the inbuilt scripting languages are not a problem.

  Read the article

• GLSL vertex shaders with movements vs vertex off the screen

  - by user827992

  If i have a vertex shader that manage some movements and variations about the position of some vertex in my OpenGL context, OpenGL is smart enough to just run this shader on only the vertex visible on the screen? This part of the OpenGL programmable pipeline is not clear to me because all the sources are not really really clear about this, they talk about fragments and pixels and I get that, but what about vertex shaders? If you need a reference i'm reading from this right now and this online book has a couple of examples about this.

  Read the article

• Gathering all data in single iteration vs using functions for readable code

  - by user828584

  Say I have an array of runners with which I need to find the tallest runner, the fastest runner, and the lightest runner. It seems like the most readable solution would be: runners = getRunners(); tallestRunner = getTallestRunner(runners); fastestRunner = getFastestRunner(runners); lightestRunner = getLightestRunner(runners); ..where each function iterates over the runners and keeps track of the largest height, greatest speed, and lowest weight. Iterating over the array three times, however, doesn't seem like a very good idea. It would instead be better to do: int greatestHeght, greatestSpeed, leastWeight; Runner tallestRunner, fastestRunner, lightestRunner; for(runner in runners){ if(runner.height > greatestHeight) { greatestHeight = runner.height; tallestRunner = runner; } if(runner.speed > ... } While this isn't too unreadable, it can get messy when there is more logic for each piece of information being extracted in the iteration. What's the middle ground here? How can I use only a single iteration while still keeping the code divided into logical units?

  Read the article

• Photoshop Elements 9 VS Paintshop Photo Pro X3 For Web Design

  - by Brian

  I need a good image creation program for web design. I have downloaded both Elements 9 and Paintshop X3. So far I have found them both to be great programs. X3 seems like it has a lot of features, Elements seems like it's quite easy and stable to use. I think I'm going to go with Elements, but I wanted to get other opinions. Which program do you guys like better overall? What things do you think they lack for image creation/editing pertaining to web design, or what features do they have that are great for it? Thanks!

  Read the article

• Productivity vs Security [closed]

  - by nerijus

  Really do not know is this right place to ask such a questions. But it is about programming in a different light. So, currently contracting with company witch pretends to be big corporation. Everyone is so important that all small issues like developers are ignored. Give you a sample: company VPN is configured so that if you have VPN then HTTP traffic is banned. Bearing this in mind can you imagine my workflow: Morning. Ok time to get latest source. Ups, no VPN. Let’s connect. Click-click. 3 sec. wait time. Ok getting source. Do I have emails? Ups. VPN is on, can’t check my emails. Need to wait for source to come up. Finally here it is! Ok Click-click VPN is gone. What is in my email. Someone reported a bug. Good, let’s track it down. It is in TFS already. Oh, dam, I need VPN. Click-click. Ok, there is description. Yea, I have seen this issue in stachoverflow.com. Let’s go there. Ups, no internet. Click-click. No internet. What? IPconfig… DHCP server kicked me out. Dam. Renew ip. 1..2..3. Ok internet is back. Google: site: stachoverflow.com 3 min. I have solution. Great I love stackoverflow.com. Don’t want to remember days where there was no stackoveflow.com. Ok. Copy paste this like to studio. Dam, studio is stalled, can’t reach files on TFS. Click-click. VPN is back. Get source out, paste my code. Grand. Let’s see what other comments about an issue in stackoverflow.com tells. Hmm.. There is a link. Click. Dammit! No internet. Click-click. No internet. DHCP kicked me out. Dammit. Now it is even worse: this happens 3-4 times a day. After certain amount of VPN connections open\closed my internet goes down solid. Only way to get internet back is reboot. All my browser tabs/SQL windows/studio will be gone. This happened just now when I am typing this. Back to issue I am solving right now: I am getting frustrated - I do not care about better solution for this issue. Let’s do it somehow and forget. This Click-click barrier between internet and TFS kills me… Sounds familiar? You could say there are VPN settings to change. No! This is company laptop, not allowed to do changes. I am very very lucky to have admin privileges on my machine. Most of developers don’t. So just learned to live with this frustration. It takes away 40-60 minutes daily. Tried to email company support, admins. They are too important ant too busy with something that just ignored my little man’s problem. Politely ignored. Question is: Is this normal in corporate world? (Have been in States, Canada, Germany. Never seen this.)

  Read the article

• update-java-alternatives vs update-alternatives --config java

  - by Stan Smith

  Thanks in advance from this Ubuntu noob... On Ubuntu 12.04 LTS I have installed Sun's JDK7, Eclipse, and the Arduino IDE. I want the Arduino to use OpenJDK 6 and want Eclipse to use Sun's JDK 7. From my understanding I need to manually choose which Java to use before running each application. This led me to the 'update-java-alternatives -l' command... when I run this I only see the following: java-1.6.0-openjdk-amd64 1061 /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.6.0-openjdk-amd64 ...but when I run 'update-alternatives --config java' I see the following: *0 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java auto mode 1 /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java manual mode 2 /usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.7.0/bin/java manual mode 3 /usr/lib/jvm/jre1.7.0/bin/java manual mode I don't understand why the update-java-alternatives doesn't display the same 3 options. I also don't understand how to switch between OpenJDK6 and JDK7. Can someone please explain how I can go about using the OpenJDK6 for Arduino development and Sun JDK7 for Eclipse/Android development? Thank you in advance for any assistance or feedback you can offer. Stan

  Read the article

• Manager/Container class vs static class methods

  - by Ben

  Suppose I a have a Widget class that is part of a framework used independently by many applications. I create Widget instances in many situations and their lifetimes vary. In addition to Widget's instance specified methods, I would like to be able to perform the follow class wide operations: Find a single Widget instance based on a unique id Iterate over the list of all Widgets Remove a widget from the set of all widgets In order support these operations, I have been considering two approaches: Container class - Create some container or manager class, WidgetContainer, which holds a list of all Widget instances, support iteration and provides methods for Widget addition, removal and lookup. For example in C#: public class WidgetContainer : IEnumerable<Widget { public void AddWidget(Widget); public Widget GetWidget(WidgetId id); public void RemoveWidget(WidgetId id); } Static class methods - Add static class methods to Widget. For example: public class Widget { public Widget(WidgetId id); public static Widget GetWidget(WidgetId id); public static void RemoveWidget(WidgetId id); public static IEnumerable<Widget AllWidgets(); } Using a container class has the added problem of how to access the container class. Make it a singleton?..yuck! Create some World object that provides access to all such container classes? I have seen many frameworks that use the container class approach, so what is the general consensus?

  Read the article

• Terminology: .NET C++ vs. traditional C++

  - by Mike Clark

  Hello. I've recently been working with a team that's using both .NET C++ and pre-.NET C++. I fully understand the technical differences between the two technologies. However, I sometimes feel like I'm floundering when it comes to the terminology used to differentiate the two. Example: Say we have two projects: ProjectA contains "C++" code that builds a .NET assembly DLL. ProjectB contains Visual C++ code that builds a traditional native Windows DLL. What is the best way to succinctly and terminologically draw a distinction between the two projects? Again, I'm not asking for an in-depth technical description of the differences between the two technologies. I'm just looking for names and labels. This is how I might try to make the distinction when talking to someone about Project A and Project B: "ProjectA is a managed .NET C++ project" and ProjectB is an unmanaged Visual C++ DLL project." However I am not at all certain that this terminology is ideal, or even correct. Please describe what you feel the ideal language to use in this situation (or similar situations) might be. Feel free to motivate your answer.

  Read the article

• "My stuff" vs. "Your stuff" in UI texts

  - by John Isaacks

  When refering to a users stuff should you use My or Your, for example: My Cart | My Account | My Wishlist Or Your Cart | Your Account | Your Wishlist I found this article that argues for the use of your. It says flikr does this. It also says MySpace and MyYahoo are wrong. I also noticed today that Amazon uses the term Your. However, I have heard they are the masters at testing variations and finding the best one, so what you see on their site might be the best variation, or simply something they are currently testing. I personally like the way my looks better, but thats just my opinion. What do you think? What will hever the better impact on customers? Does it really even matter?

  Read the article

• Corona SDK (Lua) vs Native Obj-C for iPhone only word puzzle type game [closed]

  - by dodgy_coder

  I am trying to decide on whether to use the Corona SDK & Lua versus native Objective-C to develop an iOS app. This will be the first game on any smartphone I have developed and so its not that ambitious - a single player word puzzle type game - something sort of like scrabble. The advantages of Corona I can see are: Lua is probably easier to learn than Obj-C (shorter learning curve) meaning a possibly quicker development time Possibility to port to Android once its finished Advantages of native Obj-C are: Access to all and latest features of iOS More / faster available libraries Has anyone made this decision before? Are there any major advantages or disadvantages I've missed or got wrong here? Thanks.

  Read the article

• Enterprise vs Real time embedded systems

  - by JakeFisher

  In university I have 2 options for software architecture: Enterprise Real time embedded systems I would be very glad if someone can give me a brief explanation of what those are. I am interested in following criterias: Brief overview Complexity and interest. So does knowledge costs time? Area of usage Profit(salary) Working tools, programs. Might be some text editor, uml editor. Something else?

  Read the article

• TDD vs. Productivity

  - by Nairou

  In my current project (a game, in C++), I decided that I would use Test Driven Development 100% during development. In terms of code quality, this has been great. My code has never been so well designed or so bug-free. I don't cringe when viewing code I wrote a year ago at the start of the project, and I have gained a much better sense for how to structure things, not only to be more easily testable, but to be simpler to implement and use. However... it has been a year since I started the project. Granted, I can only work on it in my spare time, but TDD is still slowing me down considerably compared to what I'm used to. I read that the slower development speed gets better over time, and I definitely do think up tests a lot more easily than I used to, but I've been at it for a year now and I'm still working at a snail's pace. Each time I think about the next step that needs work, I have to stop every time and think about how I would write a test for it, to allow me to write the actual code. I'll sometimes get stuck for hours, knowing exactly what code I want to write, but not knowing how to break it down finely enough to fully cover it with tests. Other times, I'll quickly think up a dozen tests, and spend an hour writing tests to cover a tiny piece of real code that would have otherwise taken a few minutes to write. Or, after finishing the 50th test to cover a particular entity in the game and all aspects of it's creation and usage, I look at my to-do list and see the next entity to be coded, and cringe in horror at the thought of writing another 50 similar tests to get it implemented. It's gotten to the point that, looking over the progress of the last year, I'm considering abandoning TDD for the sake of "getting the damn project finished". However, giving up the code quality that came with it is not something I'm looking forward to. I'm afraid that if I stop writing tests, then I'll slip out of the habit of making the code so modular and testable. Am I perhaps doing something wrong to still be so slow at this? Are there alternatives that speed up productivity without completely losing the benefits? TAD? Less test coverage? How do other people survive TDD without killing all productivity and motivation?

  Read the article

• UIView vs CCLayer and Making gestures work in Cocos2d

  - by Lewis

  now I've been been searching for an answer to this question for at least 3 days now. I've tried on many cocos2d forums, including the official one and have heard nothing back. I've found a project which uses custom gestures: https://github.com/melle/OneFingerRotationGestureDemo Explanation here: http://blog.mellenthin.de/archives/2012/02/13/an-one-finger-rotation-gesture-recognizer/ Now I want to implement that behaviour onto a sprite in a cocos2d application. I've tried to do this but it fails to work. It uses a view controller which inherits like this: @interface OneFingerRotationGestureViewController : UIViewController <OneFingerRotationGestureRecognizerDelegate> Now my question is how would I implement the OneFingerRotationGesture behaviour onto a CCSprite in cocos2d 2.0? As interfaces in cocos2d look like this: @interface HelloWorldLayer : CCLayer Now I have asked a similar question to this on stack overflow and a user directed me to this link: https://github.com/krzysztofzablocki/CCNode-SFGestureRecognizers Which I believe makes use of gestures (like the first github linked project) but not custom gestures. I lack the obj-c skills to work out and implement the functionality into my game, so I would appreciate it if someone could explain the differences between CCLayer and UIViewController, and help me implement the OneFingerRotation gesture into a cocos2d 2.0 project. Regards, Lewis.

  Read the article

• Choosing between two programmers: experience vs. passion

  - by Duke

  I am in a position where I have to hire a programmer and have the option of 2 candidates, the first has experience but he doesn't have a passion for coding and he says so while the second doesn't have the experience but he has the passion, he did well in the interview and is certified. We have the resources to train someone, but I really don't want to blow this process and hire someone who will be disappointing. Can anyone help me as to how to approach this situation?

  Read the article

• Returning null vs Throwing exceptions

  - by Svish

  Is in a bit of disagreement with a more experienced developer on this issue, and was wondering what you guys here think about this. Environment is Java, EJB 3, services, etc. The code I wrote calls a service to get things and to create things. Problem was that I got null pointer exceptions in places that didn't make sense. For example when I asked the service to create an object, I got null back. And when I tried to look up an object with an id I knew existed, I still got null back. Was like it was ignoring me. Spent some time trying to figure out what was wrong in my code (since I'm less experienced I usually assume I have messed up). Turns out the reason was security. If the user principal using my service didn't have the right permissions to use the service I called from my service, then that service simply returned null. The services that are here already are usually not documented either, so this is just something you have to know... somehow... So here is the thing: I mean that this is rather confusing as a developer interacting with this service. To me it would make much more sense if that service thew an exception which would tell me that hey, you don't have the proper permissions to get info about this thing or to create this new thing. I would then immediately know why my service wasn't working as expected. However, he argued that asking is not wrong. Exceptions should only be thrown when there is an error and asking for a thing is not an error. Even if you don't have permission to "see" that the thing you asked for. The things are often looked up in a GUI by users and for those users not having the right permissions, these things simply "do not exist". So, in short: Asking is not wrong, hence no exception. Get methods return null because to those users those things "doesn't exist". Create methods return null because nothing was created, since the user wasn't allowed to create anything. So, what do you guys think? Is this normal and/or good practice? I prefer exceptions as I prefer throwing and catching exceptions because I find it much easier to know what's going on. So I would for example also prefer to throw a NotFoundException if you asked for an id which didn't exist, rather than returning null. Anyways, just curious to what others think about this as I'm not the most experienced developer yet.

  Read the article

• R vs Python for data analysis

  - by The_Cthulhu_Kid

  I have been programming for about a year and I am really interested in data analysis and machine learning. I am taking part in a couple of online courses and am reading a couple of books. Everything I am doing uses either R or Python and I am looking for suggestions on whether or not I should concentrate on one language (and if so which) or carry on with both; do they complement each other? -- I should mention that I use C# in school but am familiar with Python through self-study.

  Read the article

• asp.net mvc vs angular.js model binding

  - by aw04

  So I've noticed a trend lately of .net web developers using angular.js on the client side of applications and I've become more curious as I play around with angular and compare it to how I would do things in asp.net mvc. I'll give a quick example of what really got me thinking. I recently came across a situation at work (I work in a .net environment) where I needed to create a table bound to a collection of objects that had the ability to add and remove rows/items from the collection. I had an add button that created a new object and appended a row to the end of the table, and a remove button in each row to remove a particular object/row. Using asp.net mvc, I first found myself making an ajax call to the server for each operation, updating the server side model, and refreshing part of the page to show the result in the table. This worked but I didn't really like the idea of calling the server to update the model each time, so I tried to come up with a solution to do this on the client side. It turned out to be quite a task, as I had to generate the html on add with validation and all and the correct indexing for the model binding to work. It got worse on remove, as I ended up with a crazy string replace function to recreate the indexes on each item to satisfy the binding requirements (if an item other than the last is removed, the indexes are no longer correct). Now out of curiosity, I tried to recreate this at home in angular (which I had no experience with) and it took me all of about 10 minutes with simple functions to add and remove items from the client side model. This is just one example, but it seems to me that I'm able to achieve the same results with far fewer calls to the server in angular because of the fact that it binds to a client side model. So my question is, is this a distinct advantage of using a javascript mvc framework or am I somehow under utilizing the power of asp.net mvc and am I right in thinking that these operations should be done on the client and have no business requiring calls to the server?

  Read the article

• Waterfall Model (SDLC) vs. Prototyping Model

  The characters in the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare can easily be used to demonstrate the similarities and differences between the Waterfall and Prototyping software development models. This children fable is about a race between a consistently slow moving but steadfast turtle and an extremely fast but unreliable rabbit. After closely comparing each character’s attributes in correlation with both software development models, a trend seems to appear in that the Waterfall closely resembles the Tortoise in that Waterfall Model is typically a slow moving process that is broken up in to multiple sequential steps that must be executed in a standard linear pattern. The Tortoise can be quoted several times in the story saying “Slow and steady wins the race.” This is the perfect mantra for the Waterfall Model in that this model is seen as a cumbersome and slow moving. Waterfall Model Phases Requirement Analysis & Definition This phase focuses on defining requirements for a project that is to be developed and determining if the project is even feasible. Requirements are collected by analyzing existing systems and functionality in correlation with the needs of the business and the desires of the end users. The desired output for this phase is a list of specific requirements from the business that are to be designed and implemented in the subsequent steps. In addition this phase is used to determine if any value will be gained by completing the project. System Design This phase focuses primarily on the actual architectural design of a system, and how it will interact within itself and with other existing applications. Projects at this level should be viewed at a high level so that actual implementation details are decided in the implementation phase. However major environmental decision like hardware and platform decision are typically decided in this phase. Furthermore the basic goal of this phase is to design an application at the system level in those classes, interfaces, and interactions are defined. Additionally decisions about scalability, distribution and reliability should also be considered for all decisions. The desired output for this phase is a functional  design document that states all of the architectural decisions that have been made in regards to the project as well as a diagrams like a sequence and class diagrams. Software Design This phase focuses primarily on the refining of the decisions found in the functional design document. Classes and interfaces are further broken down in to logical modules based on the interfaces and interactions previously indicated. The output of this phase is a formal design document. Implementation / Coding This phase focuses primarily on implementing the previously defined modules in to units of code. These units are developed independently are intergraded as the system is put together as part of a whole system. Software Integration & Verification This phase primarily focuses on testing each of the units of code developed as well as testing the system as a whole. There are basic types of testing at this phase and they include: Unit Test and Integration Test. Unit Test are built to test the functionality of a code unit to ensure that it preforms its desired task. Integration testing test the system as a whole because it focuses on results of combining specific units of code and validating it against expected results. The output of this phase is a test plan that includes test with expected results and actual results. System Verification This phase primarily focuses on testing the system as a whole in regards to the list of project requirements and desired operating environment. Operation & Maintenance his phase primarily focuses on handing off the competed project over to the customer so that they can verify that all of their requirements have been met based on their original requirements. This phase will also validate the correctness of their requirements and if any changed need to be made. In addition, any problems not resolved in the previous phase will be handled in this section. The Waterfall Model’s linear and sequential methodology does offer a project certain advantages and disadvantages. Advantages of the Waterfall Model Simplistic to implement and execute for projects and/or company wide Limited demand on resources Large emphasis on documentation Disadvantages of the Waterfall Model Completed phases cannot be revisited regardless if issues arise within a project Accurate requirement are never gather prior to the completion of the requirement phase due to the lack of clarification in regards to client’s desires. Small changes or errors that arise in applications may cause additional problems The client cannot change any requirements once the requirements phase has been completed leaving them no options for changes as they see their requirements changes as the customers desires change. Excess documentation Phases are cumbersome and slow moving Learn more about the Major Process in the Sofware Development Life Cycle and Waterfall Model. Conversely, the Hare shares similar traits with the prototyping software development model in that ideas are rapidly converted to basic working examples and subsequent changes are made to quickly align the project with customers desires as they are formulated and as software strays from the customers vision. The basic concept of prototyping is to eliminate the use of well-defined project requirements. Projects are allowed to grow as the customer needs and request grow. Projects are initially designed according to basic requirements and are refined as requirement become more refined. This process allows customer to feel their way around the application to ensure that they are developing exactly what they want in the application This model also works well for determining the feasibility of certain approaches in regards to an application. Prototypes allow for quickly developing examples of implementing specific functionality based on certain techniques. Advantages of Prototyping Active participation from users and customers Allows customers to change their mind in specifying requirements Customers get a better understanding of the system as it is developed Earlier bug/error detection Promotes communication with customers Prototype could be used as final production Reduced time needed to develop applications compared to the Waterfall method Disadvantages of Prototyping Promotes constantly redefining project requirements that cause major system rewrites Potential for increased complexity of a system as scope of the system expands Customer could believe the prototype as the working version. Implementation compromises could increase the complexity when applying updates and or application fixes When companies trying to decide between the Waterfall model and Prototype model they need to evaluate the benefits and disadvantages for both models. Typically smaller companies or projects that have major time constraints typically head for more of a Prototype model approach because it can reduce the time needed to complete the project because there is more of a focus on building a project and less on defining requirements and scope prior to the start of a project. On the other hand, Companies with well-defined requirements and time allowed to generate proper documentation should steer towards more of a waterfall model because they are in a position to obtain clarified requirements and have to design and optimal solution prior to the start of coding on a project.

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38  | Next Page >