This article has appeared in SOADevelopers.com
If you are following the #startup moves within silicon valley, You should be knowing way too well that, #startups are racing towards releasing new application terming it under “MVP” or “Minimally Viable product”, a term that has been existing for quite some time now, at lightning speeds. With lack of availability of resources and churn rates at never before seen numbers, even MVP’s are consuming more time thereby potentially disrupting applications dying inside trenches, without seeing the outside world.
Testing is one of the key steps that cannot be evaded, no matter whether you have adopted TDD or investing on complete automation scripts. To that extent, testing becomes a major component of the software life cycle. What was traditionally a simple automation script or a simple recording and running of tests against your application has now become much more complex. Tests by itself has become an independently owned software development by itself. So, one cannot discard the importance of testing; may you talk about traditional waterfall model or the infamous and much blotted up two weeks iterative #devops model. Whether an iterative two weeks deployment model is a good approach or not, is not within the scope of this article however, the intensity of testing is and/or the massive importance of testing is. As more and more globalization is taking shape, the need to provide more time for testing becomes important or in other words, as more and more layers are built over monolithic applications, there exists the stringent need for building methodical tests around it. Here is the “point blank” statement. Opensource frameworks and pre-built applications have already gone through such harness systems. It brings along with it, ample time that can be saved. Do you concur?
Collaborations are very important. Some say collective intelligence. This invaluable collective intelligence cannot be assimilated without, very own intelligent leadership. Especially with diverse groups within each organizational units and multi-cultural diversity existing within a global distributed development network. If this doesn’t exist, just tap into it. At the most you will get 24 hours or near to development time or work hours. When one sleeps, the other is awake!
With data that has blotted up, algorithms and possibilities of data modeling that can predict near to real time predictions, has also risen. Software engineering has never become so complex in nature. No matter what tools you use. Given this scenario, what if we use already tested frameworks. Java is a very good example of an opensource development framework. With C++ evolving as stated by study groups and stencil research acknowledging the same, existing opensource frameworks that has gone through mass testing through collaborative efforts become key factor in success of startups. Available runtimes like Apache web-server plays a leadership role in this situation.
As in the case of any law of nature, the big shark eats the fishes. An example of this is the takeover of the JAVA licensing model by Oracle. Will the opensource die eventually? Will the valuable time spent by the open minded engineers or developers will be futile and thrown down the drain? Will big fishs gulp the small fishes? One may argue that, the openJDK is as good as the licensed version and that the foundation of the underlying code is the same. Yes indeed. Nevertheless as long as the the brutal nature of monsters gulping the little things around exist, one can never say anything about the future. As time progresses, more and more enthusiasts and broad minded engineers arrive at the border crossing, ready to enter the land of opensource. It is a good one liner for the monsters to know, “too many hands make lite work for you!” An old poetry I remember. A kintergarten poem. Here it is…
If all the men were one man,
What a great man that would be!
Great leaders have always laid out a green path for the people to walk. Ronald Reagan Said ““The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.” –President Ronald Reagan”
Its time to see the beauty of the world. Let the leaders make the people do greatest things and not snatch credits and leave people in agony. For ages man has been trying to live together and coexist together. Yet, there are fights and menaces. Let the servant leader lead the path. Let the flowers bloom in all trees.
I said to the almond tree, ‘Friend, speak to me of God,’ and the almond tree blossomed. !Nikos Kazantzakis
Why should the committer to opensource, the man whom I call “The Opensource man”, be “committed”. You look from any angle, its only about broad mindedness, its about development of the society he or she lives in, its all about the unity of us all and yes, he or she should be open for him or her to gain herself.
The Aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together
The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men – cries out for universal brotherhood – for the unity of us all ~Charlie Chaplin
Thank you,
With warm regards,
Sunny
