Development: Methodology
The development team evaluates and adopts the methods best suited to MBARI and SSDS requirements. We exchange ideas often with developers at MBARI and elsewhere.
Key development approach components:
- Select a high-end collaborative development environment
- Integrated Development Environment: Together/ControlCenter and Eclipse
- Configuration control: Concurrent Versioning System (Unix CVS server, SmartCVS client)
- Build control: Ant
- XML support: XMLSpy and Oxygen
- Use an iterative development process
- Interim milestones:
- Deliverables every 4-6 months
- Prototypes released more often, if available
- User reviews of "user story" status every 2 weeks, when possible
- General philosophy of "just do it" (to avoid getting stuck in design phase)
- An occasional "extreme programming" week with all participants involved
- A complete testbed system, which can be intentionally "broken" at any time to test development progress
- All code checked in to main branch should compile and not break the system
- Use a variety of feedback mechanisms
- Yearly proposal process
- Internal MBARI reviews
- Direct user feedback on products (some products require extensive iteration with users)
- User surveys
Our team is interested in identifying synergistic activities, which could either benefit from using SSDS or benefit other users of the system or both.