Best Practice

What exactly do we mean by Best Practice techniques?.... and does it matter anyway?

The majority of software developers do not work to Best Practice. Some because it takes more time and effort and some because they just don't know any better! Others only know some of what is required. For example naming conventions and error trapping are reasonably common but practices such as error logging, table driven design, change control, version control and automated server failover are much less so.

Why is it Important?

If your application is developed to Best Practice then it should....

  1. Be more robust. In other words it should suffer less from data corruption, crashes and errors.
  2. Be more accurate. The information held within your database should contain less invalid data, fewer inconsistencies and few, if any, duplicates.
  3. Have better performance. Your application should be faster and more responsive.
  4. Provide higher availability. If there is a problem with your system, such as a server failure, you should be up and running quicker and with minimal data loss.
  5. Be more secure. Be designed with security in mind to keep hackers, criminals, malicious employees or the just plain curious out of your data.
  6. Give enhanced user acceptance. Because your system is more reliable and more responsive your user's attitude to the application should be improved. Other Best Practices, such as data validation and properly designed user interfaces, will further enhance this positive attitude.
  7. Be easier to support. Any problems that do occur should be identified and resolved more quickly thus minimising interruptions and keeping you up and running longer.
  8. Be easier to maintain. Any minor changes or updates should be faster and cheaper to implement (for example see the section on Table Driven Design).
  9. Provide reduced reliance on the developer. For all of the above reasons you will be more independent and significantly less reliant upon the developer. If there should there be a problem with your developer in the future you will not find yourself up the creek without a paddle!
  10. Be cheaper to upgrade or to upsize. If you decide to make major changes to your application this should be achieved in a shorter timescale and at a lower cost to you.

To see what should be included to have your application developed to Best Practice please see our Best Practice Technical Details page.

Summary

Best Practice is not a tightly defined set of rules; it is more a set of guidelines coupled with a detailed understanding of the underlying technical concepts, an appreciation that an application will continue to evolve and be developed over the coming years and a determination to do a good job & deliver a quality product; what used to be called "taking pride in one's work"!

An application developed with Best Practice will take slightly longer to write than one which does not and may therefore cost slightly more 'up front'. However over the lifetime of the software, and usually within the first year, total costs should be lower and the business benefits significantly higher. What price do you put on data reliability, application robustness, security, speed and application flexibility? For genuine small 'quick & dirty' projects Best Practice may not be necessary; for everything else it should be mandatory.

If you want further details then please see our Best Practice Technical Details whitepaper.

It is only because we work to Best Practice that we are happy to give a Lifetime Guarantee for our software!

So, if you have a development project you'd like to discuss then please do get in touch.