If you've spent any significant amount of time in the world of DevOps and Agile software development practices, you've likely encountered the terms Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD). For several years, I've had these terms thrown around me...
In a recently published paper, researchers at Google examined the issue of failed software builds within their organization. Specifically, they wanted to address the separate questions of "How often do builds fail?", "Why do builds fail", and "How long does it take to...
The Electric Commander homepage allows you to bookmark links and job configurations for easy access. It's easy to add one or two, but if you have a lot of links and you want to share them with other users so that they have the same links as well, its a lot of work to...
Electric Commander, now known as CloudBees CD, allows you to set up an alternate location for your plugins directory. This is a two step process and it's easy to forget the second step. If the second step is not done, the system can appear to still be functioning...
Mobile application developers have a new tool in their arsenal when it comes to increasing their software quality and speed of production. With the recent launch of their new site, Ship.io, Electric Cloud is looking to bring Continuous Delivery to native iOS and...
Electric Cloud (now known as CloudBees CD) has released an open-source tool called ec-testing for unit testing Electric Commander procedures. In this video below, David Hubbell demonstrates how to download the tool, set it up, and run example test cases....
Android L and iOS 8 are bringing big changes to their respective user interfaces, shaking up not only their visual appeal, but striving to change how users operate their devices. Sundar Pichai of Google has commented that L represents one of their "most comprehensive...
There was a lot of talk about IPv6 and how it would affect users and IT infrastructure as a whole when we ran out of IPv4 addresses in 2011. Since then, on the consumer and individual level, we have not seen much change. End users still use their IPv4 addresses at...
Agile and Lean Software Development approaches came into favor in the late nineties and beginning of the 21st Century in reaction to the many issues with traditional plan-driven, heavyweight software development processes. However, many of the practices embodied in...
In this third and final installment of my three-part software engineering best practices series on code reviews, we will look at the various tools available to facilitate the code review process. We've already looked at the benefits of code reviews and why conducting...
It can often be the case that better software engineering practices may be promoted by the use of good software engineering tools. That is, tools that assist the engineer to better understand the current state of the work product. As we know, the final work product is...
Is the Windows Phone 8 Ready for the Enterprise? I suppose the short answer would be, 'compared to what?' I've been an Android user, an iPhone user, and now I'm using a Windows Phone 8 -- and I have my gripes about all of them. Of course the real problem is that I...