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Application Lifecycle Management

Articles

Making Best Practices a Reality
Almost any description of a job involving software configuration management—or more generally, application lifecycle management—will include the words “best practices.” Kareen Kircher writes on how to make best practices a reality for your work. The five ingredients to making successful changes happen are relationship, timing, automation, pertinent documentation, and refining.
Agile ALM for Delivering Customer Value: Getting Started
In this first part of a two-part series, Mario Moreira writes that a reasonable application lifecycle management (ALM) product will have a common user interface for utilizing the ALM functionality. It will also include a meta-model and process engine to parse and share information across and amongst the various functions within the ALM framework. These technical needs must be accompanied by a strong business case for delivering higher customer value and new approaches for seamless integration.
Behaviorally Speaking: Putting the "Ops" into DevOps
Much of what is written about DevOps—a set of principles that helps development and operations teams work more effectively together—is delivered from the perspective of developers. In my opinion, DevOps needs to also take an operations point of view in order to be effective and practical. This article is all about putting the “ops” back into DevOps, so to speak.
What Is the Real Difference between Software Configuration Management and Hardware Configuration Management?
Joe Farah recently noticed an increasing level of discussion on CM communities discussing software configuration management (SCM) versus hardware configuration management (HCM). Remember that there are many similarities between hardware and software, but there are certain differences that significantly impact your ability to develop and manage.

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Better Software Magazine

Surprise! Making the Most Out of Your Most Surprising Moments
Lee Copeland explains that surprise is often an indicator that discovery, learning, or even delight may be just around the corner. The surprise itself can be amusing, enlightening, befuddling, disconcerting, or frightening, but surprise should not be the end of the experience; it should be the beginning. Analyze the surprise to learn why you didn't see it coming and what you gain from that.
The Software Development Game
Adapting your software development tools, practices, and processes can be difficult, even overwhelming. The authors have studied and applied game-like processes and behaviors to help provide structure to software development adaptation. They propose a process strategy called the software development game to help teams who are faced with change.
Alternative JVM Languages For Java Projects

Java Virtual Machine has become a successful platform for applications written in many languages, not just Java. Alternatives like JRuby, Scala, Clojure, and Groovy can be more concise and offer new ways to approach problems.

How The Cloud Changes Software Production

Creating services in the cloud enables new capabilities and features to improve your product and empower your team. But the cloud also introduces challenges as to how to build and test such services. This introduction to the cloud shows how you can leverage this powerful technology and addresses how the cloud affects software development, testing, and the team.

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Interviews

The Past, Present, and Future of CM Tools: An Interview with Joe Farah
We're sitting down with CM experts to discuss not just their backgrounds in the field, but what their favorite tools are and why. This week, Joe Farah at Neuma Technology provides a great deal of information on what tools are leading the way today, and what we can expect from them in the future.
Choose Your Tools Wisely: An Interview with Joe Townsend
We recently spoke with Joe Townsend, a software configuration manager with more than twelve years' experience in the field, about which CM tools work best for him—and which ones don't. Joe discusses the need for scalability and honest integration when selecting the right tools for any project.
Continuously Delivering Success: An Interview with Jesse Dowdle
Jesse Dowdle sat down with us recently to discuss the benefits that embracing "massive" continuous integration and deployment brings to testing. Jesse is presenting the session "Massive Continuous Integration and Light Speed Iterations" at the 2012 Better Software Conference East.
Testing Mobile Medical Devices: An Interview with Jonathan Kohl
Online editor Jonathan Vanian interviews Jonathan Kohl on what it's like to work on software development and testing for mobile medical devices in light of the recent news that the Food and Drug Administration is developing a set of guidelines to regulate the mobile medical device app market.

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TechWell Stories
Should Agile Teams Minimize Branching?
Software Configuration Glitch Shuts Down Chicaco trading system
Six Questions to Ask When Selecting a CM Tool
Does Software Configuration Management Follow CM's Core Processes?
Recent Corporate Acquisitions Highlight Growth of DevOps

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