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What’s in the Fall 2016 Issue of Better Software Magazine? In the cover feature article of the fall 2016 issue of Better Software magazine, “The Evolution of Software Monetization,” Michael Zunke details how software vendors misfire in an attempt to balance protection of their intellectual property with complicated software licensing schemes that frustrate customers. |
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Stop Faking It: There Are Better Ways to Acquire Technical Skills Everyone wants to hire someone who can “hit the ground running.” But seeking a candidate who has all nine of the core skills listed on the job description shouldn't be the goal; instead, it's more important to find someone who can learn quickly, collaborate with others, and acquire those skills through work. |
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What It Takes to Become an Expert Malcolm Gladwell introduced the 10,000 Hours of Practice rule, which he claims is how long it takes to truly master a skill. The exact number may not be important, but it surely does take time and practice to hone our skills. Taking a quick coding course is useful, but to be an expert, there's no shortcut. |
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Government’s Federal Source Code Policy Mandates 20 Percent Open Source In an attempt to reduce duplicating government IT and software resources, the US federal government recently announced the “Federal Source Code” policy, which requires new custom-developed source code used by federal agencies to be made available for sharing and reuse government-wide. |
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Before Jumping into Software Testing Tools, Get Your Code Straight Software testing tools can be incredibly helpful, but only if you're implementing them from a good starting place. If your code is a mess, a tool won't fix that; you'll end up simply adding layers on top of the mess. Matt Heusser explains how your team would be better off learning elements of code as craft. |
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The Internet of Things Has Changed the Definition of Good Software As the Internet of Things takes hold and more common appliances are run by software, people will be increasingly reliant on programmers’ ability to write good code. But how do we define “good code” or “good software”—and how do we get there? Stefano Rizzo explains eight requirements he thinks are essential. |
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Testers, Tech It Up! Become More Technically Competent As our world becomes more complex, the demand for technical testing expertise is going up. While there will always be a need for domain specialists, we also need just as many technical testing roles—particularly with programming skills. Mike Sowers has some ideas on developing additional technical expertise. |
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How DevOps Is Making Testers Evolve As the streamlined DevOps movement catches on, more and more companies are abandoning “traditional testers” and getting software developers to test. Testers are not becoming obsolete—but it means testers have to evolve and start ensuring that quality is baked in. Adam Auerbach details how they need to change. |