The iNexus

Any programmer worth their salt knows that they’ll never be done improving themselves, their skillsets, and what hangs off their belts. While I’ve been (relatively) satisfied with the progress of Infinite Nexus’ projects there could always be [more] forward progress.

Working with SVN repositories and improving how the code is managed has been a no-brainer winner (insert groan that I hadn’t done so before.) And in looking at iCal the other day I realized that some defined structure might be good as well and now I’ve scheduled 2 new recurring events - Code Cleanup and Bug Testing.

Code Cleanup is the one that has me geeked. Code can always use review - cleaning up unclear names, changing method signatures that need it, mild refactoring, comments, and any other bit of ‘mundane’ maintenance. Typically this gets ignored in favor of getting done whatever needs to get done, but scheduling an hour a week dedicated not to adding anything new or fixing bugs is a sure win for readability, which makes for better code.

Bug Testing is a short 20 minute period every Tuesday and Thursday where I sit down with a product and go through all the standard workflows attempting to bust it. Bugs often get spotted in the normal course of development, and also in reports from users, but a dedicated period meant to spot them before others is yet again a sure win.

Recently Compare Folders 2.5 had a problem when it was released with the way it had been linked against the DisclosableView framework. I fixed the problem and released 2.5.1 but the simple fact is that it shouldn’t have happened. Then I read a great post from Daniel Jalkut on his Red Sweater blog about a technique he decided to use for his FlexTime 1.0 release - the ‘cold storage locker.’ I let the concept rattle around my brain and when the 2.5 incident occurred, I knew it was time to follow suit.

Basically this means that once I feel an application is ready for release and packaged up in its finished form, the application will ‘chill’ for a few days, typically 3 to 5. Testers will have access to this and clean machines will be used as well, allowing for a grace period in which gotchas can be swiftly caught and dealt with before they are a problem for anybody but me

All in all, as I’ve said a couple times already, this means great things for Infinite Nexus and I’m enjoying the changes as well. Compare Folders 2.5.2 will likely go into and come back out of the deep freeze relatively soon and we’ll see the results at work.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 25th, 2006 at 9:10 am and is filed under Apps, Programming.

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