“Optional” Software Development Practices Series
In a recent training session, Noah and I reviewed a handful of development practices including Test-Driven Development (TDD), Continuous Integration (CI), data migrations, one-click deployment and code review.
What do these practices have in common?
Though these practices (amongst others) are fundamental to how we build software at Fairway, they are often touted as optional and embraced by a small percentage of development shops. Sure, many successful development teams have rolled out quality products without standing up a build server or managing their database scripts in a version control system, but these “optional” practices are such a boon to productivity and quality, and have such a positive influence on developer professional growth, the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) as a whole and the biggest winner, the customer, they should not be quickly dismissed.
In a series of future posts, I’ll dig into these “optional” software development practices, exploring the benefits of each and how to successfully introduce them into your SDLC.