Nigel Cheshire

Nigel Cheshire's Blog From the many reports of software glitches this week, (including an outage at all-the-rage social networking site Facebook), I decided to focus on a couple of interesting (to me, anyway) stories that have one thing in common: speed. The world of Formula One racing is not familiar to many Americans, and yet it is a wildly popular sport in other parts of the world. It also is seen as a crucial testing ground for many new automotive technologies that eventually find their way into the cars that we drive. Being an ex-European, I like to keep an eye on that sport, and so it was that this story caught my eye. Last Sunday was the date of the Hungarian Grand Prix, held in Budapest. The day of the race, crash.net ran a story indicating that Polish driver Robert Kubica was complaining about a software problem with his BMW car that was causing problems wit... (more)

Using Java Tools to Enforce Best Practices

Bad code abounds, and the cost to fix it is expensive. A 2002 federal study found that software errors and bugs in code cost the U.S. economy nearly $60 billion a year. And a study conducted by The Standish Group reports a 27-month backlog on end-user requests for application enhancements. With bugs and enhancements coming out of the same budgets, only the loudest voices are heard. Many organizations with overrun projects have development teams that spend most of their time fixing bugs, fighting fires and leaping from one crisis to the next. Meanwhile, the “too little, too ... (more)

Using Java Development Tools to Enforce Best Practices

As I highlighted in Part I of this article, the importance of implementing Java development tools, best practices and processes can have a significant impact on the quality of your code and the efficiency of your development team. Quality Java code results from the talent and experience of Java developers, coupled with the consistent usage of best practices, tools and processes. In the previous article, I discussed what constitutes software development best practices; and I will now explore in the benefits of implementing the following Java development ‘best practice’ t... (more)

Java Development Managers Stress the Need to Improve Software Quality

We've all experienced it - the "get it out the door" mentality that seems to be the driving force behind many software application deliveries - a prime example of the software industry's immaturity that favors completion over quality, and an end user's preference for hot new features over stable, reliable systems. Deferring the QA process is an expensive way to operate and corporations are taking a financial hit for these software errors. According to the Washington, D.C., National Institute of Standards and Testing (NIST), software errors cost the U.S. economy $60 billion per ye... (more)

JavaOne - JavaFX abuzz

Nigel Cheshire's Blog I’m at JavaOne this week, where the talk from Sun is all about mobile, or JavaFX and JavaFX Script. I’m not sure the world needs another scripting language, but then what do I know? I know it's a bit off-topic, but the thing that struck me about JavaOne this year is just how busy it is. I didn’t hear any numbers yet, but there are a lot of people here. And, more surprisingly to me at least, is that the product pavilion is packed with people. I would have thought that in this day and age, the old trade show formula would be getting old by now... (more)