If you’ve spent any time at all reading around software engineering, you’ve probably heard or read a lot about the term “assurance”. In other words, how it should be used and what types of statements to make with respect to it. If you’ve also been reading this blog, chances are you know quite a bit about software testing and assurance. You’ve probably heard the term multiple times throughout your software program review and testing journey. This article is not an attempt to unpack every detail of how software quality assurance works and why you should do everything you can to improve it. That would be beyond the scope of this article as is, but we will say that if you want to get the most out of your software programs and ensure they provide value for money then it would be best practice to have an effective approach to assurance in place. That being said, we will focus on three techniques that can help increase your confidence in the effectiveness of your software program – don’t worry if you think these are ideas or terms; they are part of the process!
What is Software Maintenance and HowTos
Every aspect of software maintenance is part of the software program review and assurance journey – right down to the second and final step. So, how do you maintain your software programs so they last as long as possible? The short answer is maintenance follows the software and as such, it follows the practice of “write once, test once”. In other words, if you make a mistake with one section of your code, you must make a mistake with the entire application. This means if you’re writing a program that starts the main task of maintaining it, then you’re also writing code that will end the journey. A quick way to understand this concept better is to think about your software program as an airplane. The airplane rides a basic but important flight path with a lot of changes along the way. As time passes, the airplane keeps improving, adapting and acquiring new skills as it flies from point A to point B. When the time comes to land at the destination, the airplane doesn’t just sit idle and wait for the airport to clear. It accelerates forward in anticipation of landing, gathering as much speed as possible to gain as much distance as possible before the runway is clear of traffic. As the airplane gets older, it comes to learn to use more advanced techniques to navigate the new environment. As the airplane gets newer, it learns to navigate more closely with the help of sensors, avionics and other modern gadgets. As the airplane gets older, it learns to be more agile and adaptable as it falls under the influence of modern technologies. A software program is like an airplane with a lot of pieces; as it ages, each piece becomes more valuable as it becomes an integral part of the system. Over time, even a simple mistake with one or a few pieces can add up to a major contributing factor to the overall failure of the whole airplane.
Use Testing
One of the techniques that can help you to keep your software up-to-date and operational is to run regular unit and functional testing. This is particularly important for software projects with large teams, where running quick unit and functional tests can save you time and money. The best way to test your code is to use a mocking framework such as mockito or mocks.io. As the name suggests, you will create a mock up of the actual software system and then make a request to the vendor to perform the actual task. You can start with simple mockups like those made for shopping trips or for meetings with stakeholders. Once you’ve collected a few mock-ups, it’s time to play around with the actual code to discover what works and what doesn’t. Once you’ve developed a couple of dozen mock-ups, you can play around with the code to discover what else doesn’t work and make adjustments as needed.
Use Continuous Integration
As we’ve said before, a software program’s lifetime is closely tied to the quality of its code. As the program continues to use the same code, it automatically evolves over time. This means that at any particular moment in time, your code is likely to be more or less the same as it was two or three months ago. This means that you should be extremely careful when rushing your code to theoomf. There is the potential for the code to evolve beyond your control and end up being less than ideal. This is called “continuous integration” and it’s one of the most common mistakes web developers make. In other words, you don’t keep your code in a “warm storage” state where it’s easy to integrate new features or improve the old ones. You create a “cold storage” state that is usually far more stable and reliable. This is why you should always use continuous integration and delivery for your software. You should be using it as often as possible to integrate new features and make sure the old features just keep on serving the needs of your customers or the business as a whole.
Always Test and regression test
As we’ve also said before, continuous integration and delivery are essential for any software, no matter how sophisticated or complex your program may be. It is better to be safe than sorry and use these two test procedures instead of trying to integrate a new feature into your code without first making sure it works with the old ones. The test should be run once a quarter or every other quarter and the results should be compared with the old results. If the new feature still passes the test and doesn’t improve the old ones then it’s likely that the old features are causing the problem. The test should be run against known good and bad code and the results should be compared. If the new feature still passes but the old code is not good enough to be used with it, then your new feature should be rejected and merged into the existing code without further discussion. This will eliminate any possible stability issues and will help you to avoid any “code deadlock” or other situations that could lead to the program freezing or processing inoperative code.
Conclusion
The next most important thing you can do is take the time to write a clear and concise software program review and test plan. This will allow you to understand your program better and eliminate any potential issues that could have a large impact on your program’s success. After that, it’s time to get busy writing software!