Luxoft Training
[169] Agile Life Planning: Managing Personal Goals with Agile
Agile is not only a catchword and or just a set of software development principles. I believe that agile development methods, among other things, provide a wide range of tools and excellent capabilities for managing your personal goals, per
[142] 7 Principles of Testing - Part 2
In our first article we talked about the first and second principle of software testing - Testing shows presence of defects and exhaustive testing is impossible. We will now talk about principle three and four.
[144] 7 Principles of Testing. Part 3
In this article we will tackle the last three principles of testing.
[145] The YAGNI Principle
Do OCP and DIP (of SOLID) violate the YAGNI principle? Let’s analyze this particular question in more detail.
[146] BABOK Guide v3: What’s New?
Now, it’s finally come true – as of September 30, 2016, the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) launches their new certification program based on BABOK (Business Analysis Body of Knowledge) Guide Version 3. The new BABO
[147] Tester vs. Developer - part 1
A lot has been said about testers and programmers having different ways of thinking. It is quite obvious that testers look at the product from a different perspective than programmers. Often it is much easier to detect a mistake in the work
[148] Tester vs. Developer - part 2
In the first part of this article we talked about the relationship between testers and programmers and explored various strategies to improve the way they communicate and offer feedback, mostly in terms of soft skills. In this second part w
[150] Common Mistakes that Entry-Level Testers Make - part 1
While teaching people who are just starting their way in QA, I now and then come across typical mistakes they make. In this article I would like to analyze some of them and give some advice how to avoid such common mistakes.
[151] Common Mistakes that Entry-Level Testers Make - part 2
In the first part of the article we talked about writing a correct description of defect summaries. In the second part we will look at a few more tips and tricks about improving the way we write a defect summary.
[152] Possible Ways to Build Mobile Applications
This article tackles possible methods of creating mobile applications. Today, there are two very popular platforms: iOS and Android. Windows’ popularity, unfortunately, remains inside the margin of error.
[154] Gentlemen’s Set for a Mobile Project
This article is about things you cannot do without in the process of mobile application development. Below you will find an overview of required tools and approaches which will save your time for strategic tasks and help you not to get stuc
[156] Coaching, another perspective ...
The IT industry continues to be a booming one. An area that is constantly innovating and attracts the best talents. As this industry continues to grow, apart from the need for specialists in various technologies, there is also a need for pe
[126] ErrorProne.NET. Part 1
I have been itching for a long time to make an analyzer which would help me catch different errors, specific in varying degrees to the .NET platform. Many of these errors are caught perfectly well by R#, but we always want to create our own
[127] Top five programming errors in Java
Everyone makes errors. Even super-qualified experienced developers make errors. Sometimes it happens due to lack of attention or an unclear API. However, those mistakes are rare. Most common programming errors are evidence of insufficient k
[129] ErrorProne.NET. Part 3
In C# there are quite a lot of features displayed as a rather difficult IL code that lead to behavior not always obvious for the users / code readers. A good example of this is new() exception in generalizations, the use of which leads to u
[130] Instruments and financial markets
In order to understand the types of financial instruments and how they work it’s important to first of all understand the different types of financial markets out there. Some financial instruments can be traded on certain markets while othe
[131] Dealing with changes in IT project teams
Anyone who works in IT&C or knows the IT&C market acknowledges that it is very dynamic area, full of challenges and twists. This also means that any company that wants to succeed must make sure that every employee must be capable o
[134] Tips and tricks for a successful presentation
One of the key advantages of working in the IT&C industries is that if you are very good at what you do (whether it’s programming, project management, software testing or business analysis) at some point in the future you will be put in
[135] Space, time and culture: new opportunities and challenges – part 2
In the first part of the article we talked about how companies continue to adopt social technologies for internalt use and how they can be used for good as well as manipulation. In the second part of the article we will be looking at how th
[139] Instruments and financial markets – part 2
In the first part of our article we talked about the different types of financial markets and their main characteristics. Apart from those it is important to understand that each market has certain financial instruments which can be traded.
[140] Instruments and financial markets – part 3
Another way of dividing financial instruments is between spot market financial instruments (which we talked about in the previous article) and derivatives. These are financial instruments whose price depends on an underlying asset – an inst
[104] What are soft skills?
Whenever we talk about project management in particular and management success in general we have to talk about one of the fundamental terms – soft skills. Soft skills is a collective term that refers to a set of behaviors that help people
[105] Mixing different responsibilities for the same role
Combining different roles in project teams helps with budget saving and optimizing the workload of the team. However one person can’t have too many roles. But often the desire to save money and optimize produces some strange combinations of
[106] Overview of C# 6.0
There have been a lot of articles written about the new features of C # but I also want to contribute with a few of my own which I believe are important.
[107] Fixie – Testing by Agreement
Some time ago I came across a tweet that someone I know started using a new open-source testing framework Fixie and was very pleased with it. He was so happy that he even decided to revise all of the tests in the current project for the new
[108] Testing strategy – what should it contain?
A testing strategy is a relatively small static document that precedes the test plan. Before you write a lengthy and detailed plan you must first formalize some basic approaches to testing and ensure that all stakeholders understand what wi
[109] Ideal code
We often here about the ideal (or perfect) code. However, what is a perfect code? Has anyone seen it? From my point of view an ideal code is a code that meets all the software and programming requirements and standards. It also involves the
[110] Dreyfus, Agile and other scary words
There is a great programmer out there named Andy Hunt. He is primarily known as the author of a remarkable book entitled The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. But some know him as one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto, an
[112] Should You Start Using Contracts?
People on various forums have been talking about Code Contracts and whether they should use them? This is an interesting question. The answer to this question usually is “it depends”, but I can help you understand on what it should depend.
[113] Should You Start Using Contracts? - part 2
In the first part of the article we talked about the history of contracts. Now we will look at some of the features.
[116] Writing a simple analyzer using Roslyn – part 1
With the release of a new version of Studio (VS2015), each of us gained an opportunity to feel involved in the development of tools for developers. People from C #/VB compiler teams did an excellent job of "exhibiting" the compiler’s guts,
[117] Writing a simple analyzer using Roslyn – part 2
In the first part of our article we discussed analyzers – why we need them and how to created them. We continue the article by showing you how to write a Fixer.
[119] Best practices when conducting a technical interview or a structured one
When you are in a managerial role you can seldom say that you don’t have enough to do: analyzing various areas, developing business plans, setting goals, monitoring performance, solving conflicts, making decisions, coaching subordinates etc
[120] How do you prepare an internal development program – part 1
Every company will always have operational challenges. They will always represent a priority because the purpose of every organization is to be profitable. However making a profit won’t always be easy. Internal or external constraints, the
[121] How do you prepare an internal development program – part 2
In the first part of our article we talked about how to develop programs that are based on the company’s overall objectives. In the second part of our story we will look at how you can promote this program effectively in order to reach the
[122] Review A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley
DISCLAIMER: if you took the course Learning How to Learn on Coursera, the book will not be really new for you. On the other hand, if you took a course, then you know that space repetition is a very useful technique, which means the book can
[86] How to measure performance in Java applications?
Performance is an important criterion each software application should meet and each architect should have in mind when designing and putting in place non-functional requirements. Sometimes it becomes really hard to tune and improve a matur
[87] Requirements Lifecycle Management course certified by IIBA
As a result of our efforts our Requirements Lifecycle Management course has been certified by IIBA as meeting the standards of the latest version of the Body of Knowledge of Business Analysis v. 3.0.
[88] How to grow from a team leader to a project manager in IT?
I’ve often been asked this question by Team Leads (TLs) who already work in IT. How can these Team Leads become project managers? This article isn’t about people in Tech Lead positions, which, in my view, is no different from the Team Lead
[89] How to grow from a team leader to a project manager in IT? – part 2
In the first part of our article we looked at some of the common misconceptions regarding the transition from a TL to a PM. In part 2 we will talk about the challenges people face when making this transition.
[90] What is testing?
Testing is defined differently and it depends on the needs of the company and the main objectives of the project. If we consider the definitions of testing over time, we can see that the concept has developed and undergone some changes in
[91] A little trick when working with ConcurrentDictionary
ConcurentDictionary has one specific feature: in some cases it may not behave exactly as you'd expect. Here is a small example. Let's say we need to do some small caching so that the results of an expensive calculation be taken from the cac
[92] Analysts: who is who?
Without going into details the majority of project roles are quite clear from the title the person has. The project manager manages the project. The developer develops software. The tester tests it. But when it comes to analysts some questi
[96] How to start a career in testing?
Testing as a profession is gaining popularity and becoming more desirable. More and more people are willing to retrain and become IT specialists, because this area is developing and the highly paid work of the tester seems to be the most ac
[97] Responsibility in Software Development Teams
In this article, we'll review some strategies for allocating responsibilities in large teams. Most Project Managers, in charge of developing a large application or system, have to coordinate several teams responsible for developing certain
[98] Responsibility in Software Development Teams Part 2
In the first part of our article we talked about the most frequent allocations of responsibilities for project teams. But there are better strategies to improve responsibility.
[99] Process Tasks by Completion Idiom
When working with tasks, there is often a problem: we have a set of input data and for processing each element we use a long-running operation.
[100] ForEachAsync Idiom
Last time we looked at the idiom that allows you to process results in the order of task completion, not in the order of launching. But we skipped one interesting moment there. Let’s say we all have the same weather service and we want to o
[102] Working in different time zones
Nowadays a lot of software development teams are globally located which means that project managers have to learn to work with people who live in different countries and cities. Each country tends to have its own work calendars and holidays