January 21, 2014 at 8:41 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Software in 2014
January 22, 2014 at 6:39 am
I think Apps are here to stay and they won't replace other types of applications just like browser applications did not replace desktop applications (although many predicted that they would - same people perhaps?). As usual, surely it is a case of analysing the requirements so that one (or more) of the valid options for application type are selected to be developed?
Software developed better? Yes and no IMHO. Yes, many techniques, such as Test Driven Development (TDD), have improved the ability of some teams to produce better code and other techniques, such as Behaviour Driven Development (BDD), have improved the the ability of some teams to develop what is required. And then again no. Some teams (and individuals) subvert new techniques in order to justify doing a shoddy job e.g. "We're doing agile so we don't document anything!!!".
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
January 22, 2014 at 7:31 am
If you haven't seen much change in the last decade, maybe you've spent your time stuck at the SSMS console and really haven't taken a look at the software and hardware changes outside of your viewpoint.
Git and Mercurial have changed source control. GitHub is replacing SourceForge. There's a huge growth in OSS data tools and APIs. There's interesting developments like IPython notebooks. There's a large number of developers that have not developed for a Microsoft platform.
January 22, 2014 at 7:47 am
chrisn-585491 (1/22/2014)
...There's a large number of developers that have not developed for a Microsoft platform.
Now that is something to consider. I guess there are a reasonable number of programmers who have never written a commercial desktop application thus all their coding has been on a mobile platform, distributed applications and/or server based (e.g. web) applications.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
January 22, 2014 at 8:03 am
chrisn-585491 (1/22/2014)
If you haven't seen much change in the last decade, maybe you've spent your time stuck at the SSMS console and really haven't taken a look at the software and hardware changes outside of your viewpoint.Git and Mercurial have changed source control. GitHub is replacing SourceForge. There's a huge growth in OSS data tools and APIs. There's interesting developments like IPython notebooks. There's a large number of developers that have not developed for a Microsoft platform.
I'm not sure I think Git and Mercurial are more than evolutionary changes. GitHub over Sourceforge isn't much of a change, IMHO. I didn't say no change, just not a lot.
I can't speak about iPython notebooks or non-MS development much, but much of what I have seen seems to be a twist on something we have known about. It might be better, but not substantially so, or at least not in any widespread way.
January 22, 2014 at 8:25 am
It's difficult to appreciate changes unless you work with the environment or tools in question. Ask an outsider about the changes in SQL Server over the last ten years and they probably won't know or recognize any differences short of the version number or maybe a few well known popular changes. In 2004 we were dealing with SQL Server 2000, do you want to got back to it?
January 22, 2014 at 8:27 am
I'd say coding has changed very little - and most SQL coding, much like most C or even C++ coding, also hasn't changed much. Sure, we're maybe using window functions that were standardized in SQL:2003, or XML (often as a delimited-string generation trick) that was standardized in SQL:2006, but by and large, most SQL coding is more or less SQL:92 code - a 22 year old standard.
"Apps" - they're more or less any other software with a package management system, no different than most flavors of linux have had for much more than a decade. Some, but not all have a payment system integrated - not much different.
Browser based apps are just software written for a particular platform and set of libraries, whether they're IMSL or Javascript, and whether they're installed or pulled over the network (the internet's just a network) at runtime - with all the usual compatibility issues.
We've got a few new OS's, mostly built on existing OS's - not a lot different there.
Many development tools are continuing to trend more towards "here's some glue; call library code with it", which I suppose can be a trend, but that's been very, very gradual in many areas, and has common practice in some areas tracing back to at least FORTRAN 66 and external libraries like the IMSL library which started in about 1970.
Software repositories aren't much different in the last decade - a mix of locking and merging methodologies.
Testing, about the same. Perhaps the test driven development's idea that the tests can be the documentation was somewhat new, but actually having comprehensive test suites was common in at least high-cost, high-risk software before then.
Coding methodologies - the usual mix of waterfall types vs. iterative types, perhaps with more popularity on the iterative types, and with the usual often lackadaisical and inconsistent implementation.
I would say that we have more monolingual programmers now - programmers, including "senior" programmers, who only know one language, whatever it happens to be. This distresses me.
January 22, 2014 at 8:29 am
Saw this from Grant: http://www.b-list.org/weblog/2008/jul/28/lets-talk-about-dvcs/?utm_content=buffer84cfc&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Interesting reading.
January 22, 2014 at 8:42 am
I would say that we have more monolingual programmers now - programmers, including "senior" programmers, who only know one language, whatever it happens to be. This distresses me.
I'll disagree. To develop for web sites you may need to know a whole stack of languages, C#, HTML, JS, CSS, TSQL, PS. And that's just the Microsoft stack. Some of my peers have used over 20 different languages in the last 5 years, not to mention 15 or more different database system.
January 22, 2014 at 8:48 am
chrisn-585491 (1/22/2014)
I would say that we have more monolingual programmers now - programmers, including "senior" programmers, who only know one language, whatever it happens to be. This distresses me.
I'll disagree. To develop for web sites you may need to know a whole stack of languages, C#, HTML, JS, CSS, TSQL, PS. And that's just the Microsoft stack. Some of my peers have used over 20 different languages in the last 5 years, not to mention 15 or more different database system.
I agree with ChrisN. I think many programmers know multiple languages, and they should. The programming isn't that much different, IMHO, it's mostly syntax. There tips and tricks that help you be more productive in some languages, but the "get up to speed and code" should be pretty quick.
January 22, 2014 at 8:52 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (1/22/2014)
chrisn-585491 (1/22/2014)
I would say that we have more monolingual programmers now - programmers, including "senior" programmers, who only know one language, whatever it happens to be. This distresses me.
I'll disagree. To develop for web sites you may need to know a whole stack of languages, C#, HTML, JS, CSS, TSQL, PS. And that's just the Microsoft stack. Some of my peers have used over 20 different languages in the last 5 years, not to mention 15 or more different database system.
I agree with ChrisN. I think many programmers know multiple languages, and they should. The programming isn't that much different, IMHO, it's mostly syntax. There tips and tricks that help you be more productive in some languages, but the "get up to speed and code" should be pretty quick.
I also think that chrisn-585491 is correct. I have far more languages I need to know now whereas when I started I needed a few including scripting languages. I could do with experience in even more languages too but am trying to get better at the ones I need more regularly first.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
January 22, 2014 at 9:20 am
Many development tools are continuing to trend more towards "here's some glue; call library code with it", which I suppose can be a trend, but that's been very, very gradual in many areas, and has common practice in some areas tracing back to at least FORTRAN 66 and external libraries like the IMSL library which started in about 1970.
Software repositories aren't much different in the last decade - a mix of locking and merging methodologies.
Have you looked at the way the various Linux distros treat installs, updates and dependencies? Or the various schools of thoughts in the Python packaging?
Check out the tools from Continuum Analytics: Anaconda and conda.
January 22, 2014 at 1:34 pm
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