Three Strategies Your Software Developer Should Use
Getting something for nothing is perhaps more difficult in software development that in other pursuits. Invariably, you'll be faced with trade-offs when you consider purchasing or developing a new software system. Typically, three objectives will come into play that can create the need for a compromise, because you'll want all three:
- High quality
- Low price
- Fast turnaround
Traditional wisdom in software development is you can choose any two, but you can't get all three. For example, you can get a high-quality product quickly, if you're willing to pay a high price. On the other hand, you can get a high-quality product at a lower price, if you can wait out the development time required. But what's much more difficult to get is a high-quality program at a low price, and get it quickly. It is possible to move closer to that ideal if your software developer implements three specific strategies:
- Re-use the same software code in multiple projects
- Use a standardized architecture
- Reduce development time wherever possible
Strategies 1 and 2 will still help you obtain a high-quality product. Strategies 1 and 3 will help provide a lower-priced application within a shorter time frame. The ability of a software company to pursue those strategies largely dependent on the use of code-generation tools and re-usable code libraries. These automate the creation of repetitive software functions and actually reduce the amount of programming needed to create a functioning program. The more sophisticated these code-generation products, the less development time is needed to produce clean, high-quality software.
When you're deciding which developer you want for your new software, be sure to ask about each company's ability to utilize code-generation products to get as close as possible to the ideal of high-quality, low price, and fast turnaround.