When a client comes to us with a request for a new feature, a change to an existing one, or a full-fledged project, our development process provides a strong foundation for our team to meet those needs.
Taking into account budget and desired time of completion, we assess the programming requirements to sufficiently test and develop software that is reliable and easily maintained. Our development processes allow us to build on top of our previous work at an accelerated pace, and in turn provides our client confidence that any future work will be completed in a timely and budget friendly manner.
The testing and development stage of our process is designed to provide our team of developers with a foundation in which to quickly and confidently develop software that meets or exceeds the needs of the project.
A combination of unit, integration, end to end, and user interface tests are created and used to bring assurance the code we write works as expected for current and future projects. Testing allows our developers to focus on their assigned task without worry that they might break something in another part of the application. Another key aspect of testing is that we are often able to find and fix potential issues before they occur in the real world. Most importantly, our testing methods ensure our clients can trust in the software applications they present to their users.
In software development, it is important for code to be written in a manner that is efficient, readable, and maintainable.
Code efficiency is not solely based on how fast a piece of code runs. Efficient code is often clear in its logic and written with a touch of simplicity. Writing code with concise and simplistic intention allows the code to be easily read and understood by other developers, which is often referred to as readability. Maintaining readability ensures the intention of the function or method written by the code author is easily and accurately interpreted by other developers who may need to interface with or refactor the existing code.Refactor is a term often used to describe the act of improving upon an existing piece of software. There are times when developers may need to refactor a piece of code to allow it to be more reusable in other parts of the application or just to simply optimize an existing method or function for better performance. As the code base grows over time, it is crucial for developers to write and refactor code in such a way to allow it to be easily understood and maintained by anyone who works within the code base. Keeping a focus on efficiency, readability, and maintainability allows our team to deliver requested features for our clients in a timely fashion.
Another key component of our process is peer code review. Code review is a great way for development teams to provide feedback that not only helps improve the team’s skills, but it also prevents mistakes that could be costly to the client. Before newly written code is included in the production code base, we have another member of the development team review our code for any errors or potential issues. This practice is another step in our process that often helps to prevent issues before they could ever happen in production. Aside from catching bugs, the code review process also creates an avenue in which the reviewer could suggest an alternative approach that could potentially lead to less development time needed for future feature requests.
Along with code review, each new piece of code must also pass our continuous integration tests before being included in the production code base. Continuous Integration is a development practice in which developers integrate code into a shared repository frequently. Automated tests are run to ensure the newly written code can be integrated into the code base without conflicts or errors. This is a critical aspect our process that allows our team to quickly develop new software together without worry of conflicting with something that another developer has written.
Last but certainly not least, support and maintenance on the code base allows our team to ensure products work for the clients as expected now and into the future. Future software changes may be necessary for many reasons. Whether it is updating a section of code that no longer works correctly due to a web browser update, or a client’s customer has a question about the application, we strive to provide service and support that goes above and beyond. Each step of the process is equally important in the growth of our development team’s success as well as the success of our clients we are fortunate to work with. By sticking to the design of our development process, our team is able to develop and maintain software quickly and efficiently while building long lasting relationships with our clients.