Missed deployment and delivery dates, budget overruns, failure to comply with industry regulations, interrupted workflows and frustrated customers are the natural byproducts of application flaws. The current approach to resolving application problems--and ensuring software quality throughout the entire useful life span of the application--is simply not getting the job done. The time has come for a sea change in how we manage problem resolution, and ensure quality for complex, composite new applications, as well as aging legacy systems.
In our online, wired world, the digital and physical worlds are so intertwined that almost nothing can happen unless the relevant applications are up and running. You would think that as software applications become indispensable, they would likewise become more and more dependable. Instead, the rising tide of systems complexity and interdependency are making enterprise application problems inevitable, intractable, and more elusive. Last year we saw Lufthansa cancel the flights of over 3000 booked passengers due to a computer fault in the check-in systems. We've seen insufficient testing lead to the failure of Nike's i2 demand forecasting in 2000, costing the company more than a forecasted $100 million in sales. We've seen a failure to test for specific conditions contribute to the August 2003 blackout that affected the Northeastern United States and Canada. And beginning in June of last year bugs in connections between Hewlett-Packard's legacy order-entry system and SAP systems caused a backlog of customers orders ultimately costing the company $40 million is lost revenue (CIO, 11/15/05). In fact, software errors, or bugs, are so prevalent and so detrimental that, according to a study published in 2002 by America's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) software bugs cost the American economy $60 billion a year or about 0.6 percent of its gross domestic product.
2008 International Mathematica Conference Dr. Dobb's interviews Wolfram Research's Theo Gray, co-founder and Director of User Interfaces, and Roger Germundsson, Director of Research and Development, about the upcoming 2008 International
Mathematica Conference.
How Do You Do Nightly Builds and Tests when there is No Overnight? Software Production in a Geographically Distributed Environment
Attend this Webcast and find out how to overcome common build-test-deploy challenges that affect all members of a distributed team, including:
<ul>
<li> Communication difficulties, because of time-zone and cultural differences</li>
<li> Workflow challenges, like lack of documented procedures and build and test handoff problems</li>
<li> Slow build and test cycles, broken builds, and other factors that hamper distributed team productivity</li>
</ul>
Thursday, September 25, 2005 " 11am PT / 2pm ET
</p>
In this volume of Best of BYTE, we explore the emergence of some heuristic algorithms. Although we have only scratched the surface of this intriguing subject, we hope we've suggested the potential of the synthesis of heuristics and algorithms.
Understand C/C++ code in less time. A new team member ? Inherited legacy code ? Get up to speed faster with Crystal Flow for C/C++. Code-formatting improves readability. Flowcharts are integrated with code browser. Export flowcharts to Visio.
