Author Archives: Paul Barnes-Hoggett

Have you been hurt by code reuse? Learn from De Niro

Ever used someone else’s code; a library or sample app online? Ever got to a point where it’s been so mind-bendingly painful that you rue the day you ever found the stupid ‘library’ in the first place? If not then chances are you’re not a developer, you’re this guy, or you’re delusional. Spurred by a […]

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Try this, my mini-application for software estimation

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a simple yet powerful process for software estimation. When I was done I started to look at my excel worksheet for doing this process and figured that it could be something I could share with a broader audience. Rather than just post an excel file, I decided […]

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Software Estimation — A good simple way courtesy of the Navy and the cold war

In my last post I told you that your next project will take longer than you think. Now I’ve destroyed hope I’m going to show you how you can use this knowledge to be better at software estimation. We’re going to use a simple but very effective technique first developed by the Navy back in […]

Posted in Quality Software, Software Estimation | 4 Responses

Your project will take longer than you think and less than a Nukem

I will tell you how long your next project will take to release. You won’t like it, but I’ll tell you. A game is launching this week and in the story of its development is the key to successful software estimation. The game is Duke Nukem Forever, and just like the title, it did pretty […]

Posted in Quality Software, Software Estimation | 3 Responses

Making Quality Software: how to test non-functional requirements

In my last post, I outlined what I think are the twelve key constraints you need to think about if you are going to build high quality software that people want to use. As I mentioned, thinking through this needn’t be a mind sapping endeavour, and for some things you may just decide it’s not […]

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Making Quality Software: 12 non functional requirements every app should have.

When people talk about really great quality software, they usually think in terms of it’s utility, simplicity or aesthetics. But there’s more to it than that. A really great piece of software will bleed quality through and through like a piece of Brighton Rock (or Bognor Regis). What separates high quality software from mediocrity? It’s […]

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Code Coverage with Flex – a headless agent for CI builds

In my last blog post I gave details of how I user the modified code coverage viewer for flex in an automated build to follow the trend of code coverage over time. The trouble with this approach was that there was a problem either with the localConnection in flex or the code that uses it […]

Posted in Agile Software Development, Continuous Integration, Flash & Actionscript | 22 Responses

Code Coverage with Flex – ANT build for running the viewer

In my last post, I gave you my elegant extension hack for generating EMMA style code coverage reports from FlexCover. This post covers the first route I took to incorporating this in my build process. It does work, but it’s not very consistent in its reporting and I’ll explain why at the end…

Posted in Agile Software Development, Continuous Integration, Flash & Actionscript | 5 Responses

Code Coverage with Flex – creating EMMA formatted reports

Details on my hack for creating EMMA formatted code coverage reports using FlexUnit

Posted in Agile Software Development, Continuous Integration, Flash & Actionscript | 5 Responses

FlexUnit eclipse plugin alpha

I’ve been kind of quiet recently for three reasons: Its summer Work has been insanely busy I’ve been beavering away on a new plugin for eclipse The plugin is designed with one key goal in mind: shortening the develop-test feedback loop. It integrates eclipse and the flexunit framework to make our lives as developers easier. […]

Posted in Agile Software Development, Flash & Actionscript, Test Driven Development | 1 Response