Life of A Programmer — Session 5.1 — You are a Quality Assurance Manager

You are a software engineer. You work for a great software
development company.

Would you believe it if I told you that you are a Quality
Assurance Manager.

You don’t believe it! I don’t blame you.

Q.A. is a management activity. It is taught in Business
Administration.

You have a college degree in Software Engineering, not
Business Administration.

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My Comment Approval Criteria

Every day I receive between 50 and 100 comments requesting approval. There is only one of me managing the blog and hence must perform this function quickly and efficiently. To this end, each comment must:

1. Have a text message. For the most part, a comment with no text message will be deleted.

2. Be written in English.

3. Adhere to the basic principles of civilized behavior (I have had not problems with this so far).

4. Be consistent to the associated post and the purpose of the blog.

5. Be short. If it is over ten lines, I will delete it.

6. Not advertise any product, service or cause. I have been receiving a lot of promotions of solar panels for generating electric power which I have permanently deleted.

Thank You

Robert Adams

Developing a Website using a software parts library

The activity associated with development of a software parts library
for the development of a web-site will be presented here. This will be
an extension of the library used to prepare Programmable Software
Development Environment manual.

This effort was started a long time ago following the development of
the manual software parts library. Its purpose was to eliminate the
need for Front Page. It was subsequently put on hold so that other
more important efforts could proceed.

Mr. Mike is a long time professional friend of mine who has recently
offered to reconstruct my Web-Site. I told him my plan to use my tool
to rebuild my site. He has had difficulties relating to my technology
(It is quite different than normal programming methods) and I am not
really skilled in Web-site design. We both felt that this might a great
opportunity to make the technical connection.

SATURDAY: 2014/08/30

STATUS: The modifications to the existing software parts and the two
new software parts needed to make the center of the group the default
position for an image have been functionally tested.

DETAIL: Functional testing is not equivalent to thorough testing. I am
using the the test project to accomplish this task. This will permit
me to thoroughly the software parts library at a later time.

NEXT TASK: I plan to start the development of the software parts needed
to have two horizontal group sections. I still need to test the
software parts that define the borders; however, I do not need them for
the current web-site application.

Life of A Programmer — Session 4.5 — How can you become more skilled than your fellow employees.

PRINCIPLE 4: ACCEPT NO VERBAL ORDERS

In 1961, Lockheed had a standard document called an ANVO. This meant
“ACCEPT NO VERBAL ORDERS”.

This is a very important and valuable concept. Spoken commands are
more likely to be misinterpreted.

Your boss might only make verbal commands. In this case, give him
your interpretation in writing.

When an ANVO has been issued, make sure that its required effort
is properly documented in your log.

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The Most Important People In Our Society.

Who are the most important people in civilized society?

Are wealthy individuals the most important people in our
society? No, they are not.

Are celebrities the most important people in our society?
No, they are not.

Do religious organizations contain the most important
people in our society? No, they do not.

Are government officials the most important people in our
society? No, they are not.

The artisans and highly skilled professionals are the most
important people in any civilized society.

Nothing of any value gets done without the participation
of these highly skilled professional.

WHATIFWE increased the number of highly skilled home-based
pioneering professional software engineers?

Life of A Programmer — Session 4.4 — How can you become more skilled than your fellow employees.

PRINCIPLE 3: MAKE SMALL SELF-DOCUMENTING SOURCE FILES.

Each of your source code files should not be longer than
three or four pages.

Each source code file should have lots of descriptive
comments.

Each source code file should reference a section of
your plan.

Each variable name should be instantly identifiable.

Keep in mind that your source-code goal is to be able
to instantly relate to its design and use when you open
its file.

You might have to answer a question over the phone a year
after you complete the project.

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My Invitation To You

I became a software engineer in 1966 due to an experiment
that I had performed. I have never taken a course in
Software Engineering. Over the years, I have continued
to experiment on my own time and have greatly benefited
from this activity

In 1992, I became a home based software development business.
I developed a set of tools to aid me in my business activities.
These tools evolved over time and are now capable of helping
a software engineer to become a better, more competitive programmer.

I invite you to take a similar path. My tools can be downloaded
free-of-charge from my web-site, http://www.whatifwe.com and they are
well documented.

Life of A Programmer — Session 4.3– How Can You Become More Skilled Than Your Fellow employees.

PRINCIPLE 2: KEEP A WRITTEN DAILY LOG

Keep an accurate written log of your activities.

This log should contain the beginning and end time
for each activity.

This log should briefly define the activity and its
results.

Where appropriate, the log should reference particular
sections of your plan.

The “Weight of The Evidence” is always valuable in any
progress report.

You will always be able to show management your current
status at any time.

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Software “Breaks”!

A 17 year old sailor on a submarine must be able to
fix a critical piece of electronic equipment within
15 minutes.

Critical submarine hardware has the required subsystems
to facilitate the location of a failed replaceable components.

Most hardware these days has at least one computer within it.
This includes critical submarine systems.

Can the same 17 year old sailor on a submarine find and
correct a critical software failure within 15 minutes?

Does software “break”? Not really. but software fails when
it illegally or incorrectly writes some data.

Programmers have many ways of preventing illegal writes which
they use in checkout and then remove before delivery.

WHATIFWE used formal illegal write prevention code in delivered
software?

Life of A Programmer — Session 4.2 — How can you become more skilled than your fellow employees.

PRINCIPLE 1: WRITE AND EXECUTE A PLAN

In many companies, when a new major task is assigned, the
responsible software engineer will be asked to make a plan.

This plan will be presented to management and the senior
programmers for their comments and criticism.

In most cases, this plan will become obsolete and forgotten
with the first software development keystroke.

To become more valuable in the eyes of management, you must
strictly execute the plan that you have prepared.

It can be done and you will learn how to plan your tasks much
better than anyone else

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