Getting It Right First Time. Almost?

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item Getting It Right First Time. Almost?

    [font="Tahoma"]Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. – Carl Jung.[/font]
  • Code reviews are essential. I am not stipulating the amount of code reviewed or the frequency but I have found that a team that employs code reviews encourages everyone to review their code before checking in (OK, I admit it: I am coming at this from a developers perspective). Having said that I believe that reviewing anything that can be reviewed is applicable.

    As for code reviews, I am always the slowest person from when then code is development completed to checked in. The reason? I review each and every file change before check in. The downside is that I have to start to complete my tasks before most others. The upside is that I have less check in issues such as debugging code, missing implementation with comment to complete or file added to project files but not to source control.

    I may have called it something else but in principle, yes, Check & Test!!!

    Gaz

    -- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!

  • Possibly for many Devs/DBAs/etc the phrase "Test & Check-In" is more apt (ie Source/Version Control).

    Gary Varga (8/5/2014)


    I review each and every file change before check in.

    You'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how many IT companies don't bother with this procedure. And yet they wonder why mistakes happen. :blink:

    qh

    [font="Tahoma"]Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. – Carl Jung.[/font]
  • quackhandle1975 (8/5/2014)


    Possibly for many Devs/DBAs/etc the phrase "Test & Check-In" is more apt (ie Source/Version Control).

    Gary Varga (8/5/2014)


    I review each and every file change before check in.

    You'd be surprised (or maybe not) at how many IT companies don't bother with this procedure. And yet they wonder why mistakes happen. :blink:

    qh

    Most developers I have worked with (including good ones and DB Devs - good or otherwise) complete their testing then check in ANY CHANGES without reviewing what they have done. People who do this should be made to maintain their own code for two years after release alongside developers who say "I don't need to comment my code because I named everything well and used simple well named methods so it is all obvious".

    Gaz

    -- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!

  • On a slightly different note, I wonder how much fiscal "constraints" play into this. Think of rather small businesses who are unable (or probably more correctly unwilling) to procure adequate infrastructure to support truly good testing and QA.

    I can imagine managers and directors saying, "What? You want another SQL Server license just for testing?"

    Yes, it's a matter of "how can you afford not to" and the advent of better hardware and VMs has made this less of an excuse, but management and the bean counters don't always see that. They tend to have a bit of bottom line tunnel vision.

    ____________
    Just my $0.02 from over here in the cheap seats of the peanut gallery - please adjust for inflation and/or your local currency.

  • This is a great policy. If you can stand up an exact duplicate of your environment then you can really get a good idea of what will happen. However the financial constraints typically trump a good test environment. In that case, perfection is expected and the business side doesn't understand why mistakes happen. Most people typically learn this only after they have made one of those big career changing mistakes.

  • lshanahan (8/5/2014)


    ...I can imagine managers and directors saying, "What? You want another SQL Server license just for testing?"

    ...

    Sometimes Express editions can be useful for functional testing. Obviously, this is not the solution for performance testing.

    Gaz

    -- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!

  • lshanahan (8/5/2014)


    I can imagine managers and directors saying, "What? You want another SQL Server license just for testing?"

    Yep, been there many times. Thankfully there are Eval/Developer/Express editions.

    qh

    [font="Tahoma"]Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. – Carl Jung.[/font]
  • lshanahan (8/5/2014)


    I can imagine managers and directors saying, "What? You want another SQL Server license just for testing?"

    I've always have gotten the reading from our legal staff that setting up a server for dev or testing was considered legal and free as far as licensing is concerned. But it has to be in a separate domain.

    Have they all been wrong?



    ----------------
    Jim P.

    A little bit of this and a little byte of that can cause bloatware.

  • Jim P. (8/5/2014)


    lshanahan (8/5/2014)


    I can imagine managers and directors saying, "What? You want another SQL Server license just for testing?"

    I've always have gotten the reading from our legal staff that setting up a server for dev or testing was considered legal and free as far as licensing is concerned. But it has to be in a separate domain.

    Have they all been wrong?

    From my understanding, it's not actually free. It should be the Developer's Edition and each chair should have a license for it. In quantity, they can be as low as 30 bucks from a good MS authorized dealer.

    --Jeff Moden


    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.


    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • Jeff Moden (8/5/2014)


    From my understanding, it's not actually free. It should be the Developer's Edition and each chair should have a license for it. In quantity, they can be as low as 30 bucks from a good MS authorized dealer.

    I investigated this the other day yep Developer editions aren't free but minimal cost - plus you will need to go through an authorised dealer. (At least in the UK) Not sure whether you get things like the Stream insight framework with that either.

  • Don't forget to count any licences available from MSDN, MPP or Action Pack etc.

    Gaz

    -- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!

  • Gary Varga (8/5/2014) "I don't need to comment my code because I named everything well and used simple well named methods so it is all obvious".

    Usually followed by something like "What's wrong with M as a variable name/table alias for the Customer table, it's obvious what it does! It saves typing ... WAH-WAH-WAHHHH"

    I'm a DBA.
    I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them.

  • andrew gothard (8/6/2014)


    Gary Varga (8/5/2014) "I don't need to comment my code because I named everything well and used simple well named methods so it is all obvious".

    Usually followed by something like "What's wrong with M as a variable name/table alias for the Customer table, it's obvious what it does! It saves typing ... WAH-WAH-WAHHHH"

    I always thought that people used aliases to make things clearer but I cannot believe how many people do it to save a few keystrokes and make it more obscure. Ridonkulous!!!

    Gaz

    -- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!

  • Jim P. (8/5/2014)


    lshanahan (8/5/2014)


    I can imagine managers and directors saying, "What? You want another SQL Server license just for testing?"

    I've always have gotten the reading from our legal staff that setting up a server for dev or testing was considered legal and free as far as licensing is concerned. But it has to be in a separate domain.

    Have they all been wrong?

    Not free.

    Technically even the Evaluation editions are for that - evaluation, and not testing (whether MS would actually bother to persue you for that might be another point, but that means you're depending on their benevolence).

    That's what the DEV editions / msdn platforms are for. Certainly if you're using unpaid for full versions for testing, from everything I've ever been told by Microsoft licencing (see how I copped out there), that would be a breech and they could spank you very hard in the wallet.

    I'm a DBA.
    I'm not paid to solve problems. I'm paid to prevent them.

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