Open Development in C#.NET

Drawer QR Code 2d barcode in C#.NET Open Development

Sharing code and tools between teams relies on meeting the unique needs of each team. If an individual or team cannot customize code or a tool themselves, or if the owner of the code cannot make the needed changes for them, their only remedy is to create their own copy or start from scratch. Unless, of course, the code is available for anyone to contribute to or modify. In 2007, Microsoft launched a new internal portal named CodeBox, which is shown in Figure 15-4. With CodeBox, Microsoft engineers can create, host, and manage collaborative projects. Built by the Engineering Excellence team, CodeBox is an internally shared application with a look and feel similar to CodePlex (http://www.codeplex.com). CodeBox includes support for source control, which enables anyone to make additions and enhancements to any of the projects. The owners of the projects have complete control over which changes they accept, while those who are making changes remain free to work in a branch or fork (a branch or fork is a distinct copy of the original source that retains the same history) in case they need to retail special features that have not yet been accepted.

Figure 15-4: Microsoft CodeBox. CodeBox use is growing quickly. Many of the popular tools from the previous tool portal have already been migrated to the shared source model on CodeBox. From January 2007 to March 2008, contributions grew from 50 to 400 per week. In addition to the shared tools and utilities, larger groups are using CodeBox as a workspace for developing applications that will someday grow to be new Microsoft products. It's too early to tell the long-term benefit CodeBox is going to have on increasing code reuse, but the initial prognosis is good. As adoption and usage grow, shared code and tools will benefit the entire company in terms of reduced development costs, higher quality tools, and replacement of constant reinvention with building on the knowledge and experience of an entire engineering community.

Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice (New York: Harper Perennial, 2005).

Summary

Software engineering continues to grow in advancements as well as in complexity. With this advancement and complexity, new and bigger challenges consistently appear. To many software

engineers, these challenges are a big part of the excitement and draw of the profession. Keeping one eye on the problems of today while anticipating and acting on the emerging problems of the future is a crucial attribute of great technical leaders at Microsoft and in the software industry. Improvements in failure analysis, code reviews, virtual machine usage, and code reuse are only four of the dozens of big challenges Microsoft engineers are confronting. These challenges, along with a continuing effort to improve software engineering, are an exciting part of the Microsoft culture.

Software testing is still a relatively new discipline when compared with software development. Companies such as the Computer Usage Corporation (CUC) and Applied Data Research (ADR) started business in the 1950s and provided systems software and applications for computer manufacturers and business users. At that time, testing and debugging were synonymous, and both activities were entirely the programmer's job. In later years, testing became a separate activity, transforming roles from the acts of "bug finding" and verifying that the software satisfied the requirements to activities of finding errors and measuring quality. For the most part, software testing is still an act of verifying software functionality and an attempt to find the most critical errors before the product finds its way into the hands of the customer. Software programs today are bigger, more complex, used in more varying scenarios, and have massive numbers of users. Although more testing occurs earlier in the product cycle in software companies and IT departments, it's unclear whether the investment is making headway against the growing complexity of today's software. Even with our advances in techniques and improvement in software quality despite increases in complexity, we have to ask the obvious question: Where does testing go from here