Best practices: Our guarantee of quality

1902 Software Development presents its best practices in software development and project management. We carefully follow a tried-and-tested software development process to come up with various web application that accurately meet the needs of our clients.

Here we explain—in layman's terms—how we work. We don't claim to have the magic bullet, but we have built a significant amount of experience and an effective software development process over the years that have greatly benefited all our clients. We abide by an effective methodology in doing projects for you. This is the best way to keep our work organized and to complete the project on time and within your allotted budget.

1. Data collection and planning

We begin by finding out what you need. We work with you and give you options for us to come up with the Development Specifications. We first identify all the pages in the system that will be used for data display and/or collection. The data formulate the basis for the system. We list all the pages or dialogs in the system, together with each type of data collected. We send this document to you for approval so that we are 100% sure that we are using the right data.

For example, all screens in your web application will contain data. For each screen, we need to know which data should be shown or used. For a hospital patient record, for instance, we may have identified the following data:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Address 1
• Address 2
• Zip Code
• Town
• Phone Number
• Age
• Gender
• Comment

In reality, the list may need to look like this—and thus, we were missing data:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Address 1
• Address 2
• Zip Code
• Town
• Phone Number
• Age
• Person Number
• Weight
• Blood Pressure
• Gender
• Comment

To avoid mistakes or forgetting things, we ask our customers to review everything before we start development. This is the key to begin an effective software development process.

2. The development process: planning

We develop "object-oriented" software. This is a fancy expression, but it basically means that a program is made up by adding different bits and pieces of software together where each piece of software has a specific functionality. The art is to ensure that there is only one piece of software for each functionality in a system. Simply put, the idea is to use software pieces over and over in the same program. While this lowers the development time, it requires accurate planning. The following explanation clarifies how 1902 develops software:

Classes

When a software is developed, it is usually divided into classes. A class has a specific functionality; for instance, you have once class for saving data to a database, one for retrieving data from a database, and so on.

 

The next level is modules. A module is a collection of classes; for instance, you may have a module for customer management where you can enter, view and retrieve data about your customer. This module is made by combining many classes, one for saving data, one for retrieving data, one for searching data, and so on.

 

One of our best practices in software development is to make the programmed classes so versatile that the same class can be used in multiple modules. The finished application is then made up of many modules put together in an application framework. As such, an application is made out of hundreds if not thousands of classes and modules. Therefore, the first thing we do after data identification is to identify the modules making up the application, and then which classes are needed to make the module.

 

3. Programming

Once we know which data the system needs and we know which modules and classes are needed, we get to the point where we start writing the actual code.
We normally distribute the writing of classes based on the developer's particular skills. Once the base classes have been written, we start to put them together as modules, and finally the modules are put together to form the actual application. There are many steps in-between, but this is in general how things are done in this particular stage of software development process.

4. Pretesting

In this phase, we go through and perform a rough test of the application to see if data are correctly saved and retrieved, and that the application is generally working as planned.

5. First debug phase

Based on the feedback from the initial test, errors are repaired and fixed.

6. In-depth testing

Once all known errors are fixes, we perform an in-depth testing of the system using the development specifications as guide. During this process, errors are usually fixed while testing is performed. This test is always performed live over the Internet so that any issues relating to network delays are trapped.

7. Customer presentation

With the in-depth test over and issues resolved, we present the application to the customer. The presentation is followed by orienting or teaching the customer how to use the system. The customer then performs his own testing and reports errors along the way. Errors are fixed in batches. For instance, we may collect 6 errors before we deal with them.

8. Changes

Changes are unfortunately a part of any software development process. During the customer test phase, it is almost 100% sure that changes will be required. Changes are done to the application as soon as practical, or are scheduled for a subsequent version. We have a system in place when implementing changes and additions, which we consider part of our project management best practices.

9. Data entry

Once the customer test phase is over, the customer enters all the base data. The base data must be entered by the customer.

10. Installation

With all base data entered, the application is finished and ready to go live.