Software application development

Amidst news of job cuts, support for Moblin 2.1 and its enterprise collaboration platform called Pulse, Novell’s new Mono Tools add-in module for Microsoft Visual Studio seems to have slipped comparatively under the radar.

The company says that this is the first commercial development tool for the rapid creation of .NET applications for Linux, UNIX and Mac OS X within Visual Studio. A note of caution on that statement, the “industry first” element of Novell’s announcement appears to rather hazily refer to this product being the first “rapid and easy to use” tool, which is perhaps rather too subjective.

Regardless, Mono Tools for Visual Studio claims to allow Microsoft .NET developers to use their familiar Visual Studio environment to design, code and maintain multi-platform applications.

Novell’s curiously named “Mono” offering appears to very much play in multi-channel stereo, or at least multi-platform development. One can only speculate that the branding boys and girls decided to use the mono ‘one product for many’ label to signify the breadth of the product.

Microsoft has said that it backs Mono Tools, but then Microsoft would put their stamp of approval on products that integrate with its Visual Studio IDE (integrated development environment) as they “enrich the Visual Studio ecosystem” no less.

Prior to the arrival of products such as Mono Tools, .NET application porting did indeed require developers to invest in learning new programming tools and rewriting/re-architecting applications. Novell says that, “Mono Tools for Visual Studio is a commercial solution that enables C# and .NET developers trained in Microsoft Visual Studio to stay within their preferred IDE, and use their existing skills and extensive .NET ecosystem of code, libraries and tools to develop or port applications to Linux, UNIX or Mac OS X.”

Mono Tools has been built by many of the engineers who develop and support Mono, an open source project sponsored by Novell. The company further states that, “Through a pull-down menu and other integration points in Visual Studio, Mono Tools enables developers to leverage the multi-platform coding, testing and debugging functionality of the Mono platform, all while staying within Visual Studio.”

Miguel de Icaza is the Mono project founder and vice president of developer platforms at Novell. He is keen to bridge the gap (as he puts it) between Microsoft’s IDE and Linux. Only a cynic would argue that he also wants to build a bridge to connect to Microsoft’s extremely profitable .Net development channel, which is currently populated by over six million software engineers. But hey, Novell is a commercial entity so why the hell not I guess right?

I’m no military man, but I could only think of battlefield warfare strategy when I read over a couple of testing and debugging stories this week. Approaching bugs and fixes with military precision to assess their impact in terms of their severity, could arguably lead to a more sensibly executed battle plan in the combat theatre could it not?

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Free Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

If triage is the concept of treating wounded soldiers with the most urgent wounds first, the carry this concept forward to the bug battlefield and solve the most pressing problems first.

As far as I understand it, triage also embodies the concept of ‘wounded beyond help’ where a victim is simply left to die. This element does not carry forward to software application development does it? Well, perhaps it does if we consider that certain application modules are so broken and/or incongruent that they should be discarded and killed off or rebuilt from scratch like the bionic man.

Vendors in this space such as Coverity prefer to talk about software “integrity” in the face of bugs, but they still use terms like ‘mitigate the business risk of software changes’ as they map defects introduced by changes as projects develops. Perhaps we are leading towards a time when ‘builds’ start to become referred to as ‘offensive strikes’ upon the main code repository?

Is this too much conceptualisation for you? OK, I’ll succumb to vendor-speak then if you wish, “The Coverity 5 unified defect management interface is the first to enable developers and management to review, prioritise and triage their C/C++, Java and C# defects in a single workflow, providing a single version of the truth for the state of integrity across the entire product portfolio.” Now I knew I got that triage concept from somewhere!

I love a good case study don’t you? You don’t? Well, ok, neither do I to tell you the truth. It takes a half decent yarn to capture my attention. So what would I rank as a half decent technology anecdote worth blogging about? I’ll tell you.

Presumably keen not to be labelled as mere recruitment consultants, StepStone is a company that somewhat grandiosely describes itself as providers of “total talent management” no less. Not only that, the company drives its online recruitment services using a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model to bring new offerings to users more quickly.

Like many organisations today, StepStone has software developers in multiple locations including Germany, Norway, Poland, UK and Vietnam. Getting these engineers to work in harmony from a code development perspective needs, unsurprisingly perhaps, a code repository and management layer in the form of a Software Change Management (SCM) system.

I contend that this begs the question then: is SMC a prerequisite for follow-the-sun development teams?

The system in question used by StepStone is Perforce, an SCM offering sometimes also more expansively termed as a Software Change and Configuration Management (SCCM) system.

Nigel Reed, head of software engineering for StepStone is on record as saying that “Perforce SCM enables us to connect everyone to a central repository to track and manage code, wherever our developer teams are based. In turn, this supports faster release cycles.”

So why don’t we hear more companies describing the mechanics of their follow-the-sun operations? Further, why don’t SCM companies use the follow-the-sun interconnectivity and continuity angle to ply their wares more directly?

Got a multinational code team? You need SCM. Easy. I’ve never heard it put like that though have you? OK, fair enough, got a multinational code team – you need SCM, robust security for connectivity, high-level code management methodologies (IBM RUP or other) to underpin momentum and a host of other factors. But you get my point I hope.

OK so I’ll spare you the ‘oh we had a problem and identified our needs so we found that xyz solution would work for us’ type of content and cut to the slightly harder core, “Standardising on Perforce has represented a real change in terms of the functionality available to us, particularly for branching and proxy support,” said StepStone’s Reed.

The Perforce Proxy is in fact a self-maintaining proxy server that caches versioned files for re-use on any local network with remote access to the Perforce server. Any number of proxies can be quickly deployed without requiring additional hardware or software. The branching feature includes a Revision Graph tool that visualises who has changed what and where.

Enough corporate voice allowed there then I think. So do you think if tech case studies were sold with a rather sharper angle in the way I have suggested that you might read them more often. I can only hope so.

Moblin’s strategy for mobile Linux on Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) built around the Intel Atom processor has, according to the project’s steering committee, reached the Moblin v2.1 project release which features so-called “broad” feature additions including 3G data support and Bluetooth device support.

Already reported on ZDNetUK, the new “customer requested improvements” also include enhanced browser functionality and plug-in support, UI enhancements, input method support for localised languages and an integrated application installer for the Moblin Garage online application store.

Not without its critics, Moblin’s sheer size does appear to suggest that the number of recent bug fixes goes into the hundreds. User feedback from the developer community appears, unsurprisingly perhaps, to have had the most cosmetic impact (if you will) on the operation of the browser. Spending pragmatic time on practical elements of the total offering and focusing on the application store (to make lists more logically categorised) would also appear to be prudent.

But Bluetooth support, 3G data provisioning, a properly functioning browser, localisation for French, Spanish, German and Chinese – all good, but surely these are not major enhancements, this is just essential box ticking. Intel is referring to these developments and “polish”, shouldn't they be calling them fundamental building blocks?

Is it too harsh to suggest that, as admirable as these improvements are, that they should be more clearly positioned as cornerstone elements of a total programme rather than the sizzle on the sausage? If MIDs continue to proliferate as they are doing, then users will demand these functionalities from the get-go surely?

Connecting three ideas together as is often my want, I appear to have stumbled on more IT Education issues than is normal this week.

Firstly, I am looking at getting involved with a large OEM to help support their work in the education sector. This involves topics such as finding out that progressive schools are looking at virtualisation strategies to cope with changing student demands. In fact, it seems that many academic institutions are turning to IT to simultaneously enhance the teaching and learning experience and reduce overall costs.

It’s a far cry from the high-tech French headphone lab we had when I was a lad. Speakers that sit on your ears and are controlled by a teacher at one end of the classroom who can stop the tape at will and talk to you as well – surely you jest? Amazing, but it was true.

Interestingly, because today’s students are the so-called ‘connected generation’, getting them to disconnect and start learning when they enter the classroom is one of the hardest parts of this equation to figure out.

My second education themed bus to come along in as many days was an organisation called eLearnIT, who I got involved with when they needed some nice layout materials to explain their courseware approach. This is a real web 2.0 affair that uses a web based GUI to simulate a classroom training environment as closely as possible. Short of animating a teacher character this is education on demand.

Yeah so it’s not unique but it’s well presented and it makes me wonder how much more I would have learned had I not had to spend hours snuffling around the crusty bookshelves of Wolverhampton Polytechnic to earn my glittering “Desmond” IIii in Economics.

Finally, the third school bus in a line came from software configuration management (SCM) specialists Perforce a company who I know reasonable well. The company is now offering SCM classes online and once again the selling points here are no travel and learn at your own pace.

Is this the holy grail of education through IT then? High quality learning experiences created by blending live instructor lectures with student discussions and virtual lab environments.

This is how Perforce’s offering works: a live instructor teaches each course on a specific day and time and most content is identical to its classroom equivalent, including student materials and course duration. Modest connectivity requirements let students participate from practically anywhere, with lectures and discussions facilitated by GoToMeeting and a virtual lab environment provided by Skytap to complete hands-on activities. All training materials – student handbook, exercises and solutions – are provided electronically.

When I think back to what I liked most about my education years, it was probably the enthusiastic tutors and surely this is the one factor that is most lacking from these new techniques. I actually find academia and professional learning a hard subject to swallow, but that’s probably because as yet I’ve never yet needed to cite the specific dates for the repeal of the corn laws despite being made to learn all that kind of stuff. Perhaps I need to step into the new learning paradigms.