Passing the Joel Test in the PHP World (phpbnl10)

Passing the Joel Test
in the PHP World

Who am I?
●
Lorna Mitchell
●
PHP Developer at Ibuildings
●
Editor at http://techportal.ibuildings.com
●
Host at DPC 2010
●
Personal site http://lornajane.net
●
Twitter: @lornajane

Who is Joel?
●
Joel Spolsky
●
Founder of Fog Creek Software
●
Blogs at http://joelonsoftware.com
●
Author of numerous books, particularly Best
Software Writing
●
Co-founder of http://stackoverflow.com

What is the Joel Test?
●
12 questions about your organisation
●
"... a highly irresponsible, sloppy test to rate the
quality of a software team"
●
Rule-of-thumb for best practice
●
How does it apply to PHP?

The Joel Test (1-6)
●
Do you use source control?
●
Can you make a build in one step?
●
Do you make daily builds?
●
Do you have a bug database?
●
Do you fix bugs before writing new code?
●
Do you have an up-to-date schedule?

The Joel Test (7-12)
●
Do you have a spec?
●
Do programmers have quiet working
conditions?
●
Do you use the best tools money can buy?
●
Do you have testers?
●
Do new candidates write code during their
interview?
●
Do you do hallway usability testing?

What is the Joel Test For?
●
Scoring your current organisation
●
Improving your current organisation
●
Scoring your next organisation

http://jobs.joelonsoftware.com

Source Control
●
Central storage
●
Change history
●
Enables collaboration
●
Manage multiple versions

Source Control Solutions
●
CVS
●
http://www.nongnu.org/cvs/
●
Subversion (svn)
●
http://subversion.tigris.org/
●
Git
●
http://git.or.cz/
●
Bazaar (bzr)
●
http://www.bazaar-vcs.org/

Centralised Source Control

repo
user

user
user
user

Distributed Source Control

repo
repo

repo
repo
repo

Distributed Source Control
●
Local machine has repository
●
Has full history
●
Commit locally
●
Commit globally later

Recommendations

subversion

Designers Managers
using TortoiseSVN using WebSVN
Developers
using command line
IDE plugins
git-svn, bzr-svn bridges

Resources
●
git-svn
●
http://www.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-svn.html

●
bzr-svn
●
http://bazaar-vcs.org/BzrForeignBranches/Subversion

●
WebSVN
●
http://www.websvn.info/

●
TortoiseSVN
●
http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/

PHP is Interpreted
●
So do we care about builds?

What's in a Build?
●
Code compilation
●
Document generation
●
Test suite execution and feedback
●
Packaging
●
Application deployment

Sounds like ...
Continuous Integration
and Deployment

Deployment
●
Automated deployment
●
upload code
●
apply database patches
●
handle uploaded files and existing database
●
populate caches
●
switch over to new version
●
Automated rollback

Continuous Integration
●
A running process
●
Responds to commit (and/or hooks)
●
Performs tasks
●
No "forgetting" to run the tests
●
Gives feedback

Continuous Integration Solutions
●
Hudson https://hudson.dev.java.net/
●
phpUnderControl http://phpundercontrol.org/
●
Xinc http://sourceforge.net/projects/xinc/

Bug Trackers
●
Capture features/tasks
●
Who does what?
●
Progress for each task, keep updated
●
Can reallocate items

Bug Tracker Solutions
●
Trac http://trac.edgewall.org/
●
Mantis http://www.mantisbt.org/
●
Jira http://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/
●
Eventum http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/Eventum/
●
RedMine http://www.redmine.org
●
Arbit http://arbittracker.org
●
Mtrack http://bitbucket.org/wez/mtrack/

Joel Says
●
Keep bugs near to zero
●
Cannot estimate bug fix time
●
Minimise unknowns

Capturing Bugs
●
As a minimum, record bug
●
Buggy behaviour
●
Expected behaviour
●
Smallest possible replication case

How to Report a Bug
http://tinyurl.com/8vx3s
●
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
if a computer does anything unexpected, freeze

Try to remember as much detail as

it's not worth reporting that the you can about what you were doing to

program generated an error it when it did fall over, and if you see

unless you can also report what any patterns, mention them. Anything

the error message was. you can provide has to be some help.

Some of the worst bug reports I've ever
seen come from programmers

Scheduling Workflow

collect
requirements

write separate into
specification discrete tasks

estimate task
duration

Who Estimates?
●
Ideally the do-er
●
At least someone who could do it
●
Never cut estimates

Specification
●
Holds the information needed for each task
●
May include acceptance criteria
●
More detail means fewer misunderstandings
●
mockups/pictures
●
form fields

Schedule
●
What each person is doing
●
When it is due to finish
●
Can record progress/actions
●
What is next

Agile and Timings
●
Agile development is reactive
●
Always on time at start of sprint
●
Estimates and spec detail can
be prepared per sprint

Burndown Charts
●
List of tasks
●
Tasks have estimates
●
Sprint is as many tasks as you have man-hours

Burndown Example

Task Est im at e M on Tue Wed Thu Fr i
Assemble pre-built frame 2 2 2 2 2 2
Paint exterior 2 2 2 2 2 2
Paint windowframes 1 1 1 1 1 1
Decorate bedrooms 8 8 8 8 8 8
Decorate kitchen 7 7 7 7 7 7
Decorate bathroom 5 5 5 5 5 5
Decorate reception rooms 7 7 7 7 7 7
Fit carpets 5 5 5 5 5 5
Add furniture 1 1 1 1 1 1

Burndown Example

Task Est im at e M on Tue Wed Thu Fr i
Assemble pre-built frame 2 0 0 0 0 0
Paint exterior 2 0 0 0 0 0
Paint windowframes 1 1 1 1 1 1
Decorate bedrooms 8 8 8 8 8 8
Decorate kitchen 7 5 5 5 5 5
Decorate bathroom 5 5 5 5 5 5
Decorate reception rooms 7 7 7 7 7 7
Fit carpets 5 5 5 5 5 5
Add furniture 1 1 1 1 1 1

Interruptions

Meetings

Email

Phone

Tools
●
Software
●
Hardware
●
Resources
●
All cost money (or time, or effort)

Software
●
IDE
●
Zend Studio
●
Visual Studio
●
many free alternatives
●
Graphics
●
Photoshop
●
Paint Shop Pro
●
free alternatives

Passing the Joel Test in the PHP World (phpbnl10)

Resources
●
Magazines
●
php|architect
●
Site memberships
●
Experts' Exchange (pay per question)
●
Safari
●
Books
●
Conferences/Events

Assessing Candidate Code
●
During interview
●
As part of recruitment process
●
Ibuildings uses this
●
The coding task makes a big impression on the
candidate

Testers are not
developers

Developers are not
testers

Tools for Testing in PHP
●
Unit Testing
●
PHPUnit http://phpunit.de
●
SimpleTest http://simpletest.org
●
phpt http://qa.php.net/write-test.php
●
Browser Testing
●
Selenium http://seleniumhq.org/

That was the Joel Test
... what's missing?

Do you use test-driven
development?

Do you avoid reinventing
the wheel?

Do you support the
professional development
of your employees?

?
Questions?

http://joind.in/1249

Passing the Joel Test in the PHP World (phpbnl10)

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