Tools of the Trade

Before we get into some of the intangibles that define a great development team, we need to discuss some of the tools that build a foundation for a team.  Without these tools and procedures in place, then the team will be spinning wheels, wasting time and generally unproductive.

This may be a strange discussion as I will not be pushing for any specific tools or technologies.  This is for good reason; tools and technologies come and go but the general principles are eternal. 

Take a first year computer science course for example.  Back in those days when I was a rosy faced student who expected to solve all the world’s problems, I was doing my assignments in Pascal.  Over the next few years, for that same course, the language changed to C then C++ then Java.  However, the contents of that course stayed the same: looping, conditional statments, stacks, queues, linked lists (well maybe not in Java-but you get the picture).  The general concepts and data structures are important to know and understand while the tools to achieve your goals will change and improve.

The specific technology and approach should be tailored to your team.  The tools and process should be there to help not to hinder the development process.  Once the process becomes the big thing and you are spending more time worrying about ‘Am i doing this right?’ instead of ‘Am i doing the right thing?’ you need to step back and revaluate.

It is that way with developing software.  There are a few essential aspects of developing software that are just ‘best practices’.  If you master those aspects you can worry about more important things such as learning the details of the new silver light release, what is the difference between a machiatto and a latte and why did Indiana Jones climb into that fridge?

So, what are those essentials?

• Source Control
• Bug Tracking Software
• Dedicated Build Environment
• Testing
• Documentation
• Modern Hardware

Perhaps one reason to start with these details are that they are easy to implement.  Just take some money, take some time and you can have these elements with little fuss and little muss.  Some of the other aspects of building team takes time and takes leadership skills.