Best Practices in IT

Most of my IT career has been as a consultant and a manger of consultants. Over the years I have established some patterns to follow that I find helpful in making projects and technology easier in the long run. I sometimes share these in mentoring sessions and have heard often enough “you should write that down” where I started to.

I am still writing these concepts down, and while they originate from a consulting perspective they translate to every day practices beyond consulting.

At the time of this writing (not reflected by the pub date), I am re-vamping this site. Part of the update is moving this content from a standard page to a category page. The navigation will change to reflect that when it is either complete or well along.

Failing to plan is still a plan

March 22, 2023Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

Some planning tips from a retired page on this blog that are still relevant…

Periodically review tuning and best practice references related to the technologies, tools and products related to the project you are working on to catch potential issues before the occur.

Always include time for making necessary, realistic data available for development. Include approaches for resetting and refreshing data. The time spent up front will be half as much or less than the time spent afterwards creating it as needed.

Plan Your Monitoring Before Go-Live

This concepts sounds obvious and yet it so often does not happen even in mature organizations. Everyone will be much happier spending some time to think about scenarios where things could go wrong and determining thresholds for alerts on any area where a variance can impact functionality or availability.

Ever hear the boiling frog analogy? While the basis is not true, the concept is important, especially with software. Be alert. The world needs more lerts.

Some Best Practices for Developers

January 26, 2023Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

This post consists of excerpts from a previous single page for Best Practices.

Apply Critical Thinking

If you are given a direction and the application of that direction does not appear to adequately solve the requirement, investigate other options. As a contractor it is expected to simply follow direction from the customer regardless of the outcome. As a consultant, it is your job to inform your leader or the client when something does not make sense and to provide a solution as part of the information. Anyone can report an issue; a consultant always includes a solution or an approach towards a solution along with the report.

Test Before QA

Always test either before checking in or creating a Pull Request (depending on your SCM process). The tests need to be as close to how the code will function in the real world as possible. Use a VM if that helps.

Trouble-Shooting

It is the nature of many developers to check outside their own work first for the root cause of a n issue. Even when this is the case, simply stating that the issue is elsewhere does not result in resolving the issue in a timely manner. Always provide detailed proof of where the issue is occurring outside of your own work in a manner that is irrefutable by the person(s) that will need to address the issue. If there is any doubt about the cause of the issue, you will be made to provide this proof anyways, so have it as part of your explanation the first time.

Perpetual Student

All developers and managers of developers know that learning for a dev is a continuous process. Here are a few tips on amplifying the value of that process:

Research solutions every time. Technology is constantly evolving, and the perfect solution used last time may have been replaced by one that is even better.
Save your learning files. For years I used an archive disk and am now starting to use GitHub to save all of my learning projects. When research fails to bring a new solution to light and you knew you had solved it once before, the archive will help. So does blogging 🙂 . At the time you are learning you may think you will remember it forever. If you are continuing to learn, you may not.
To be continued…

Common Sense Isn’t, Especially for Code (Part 2 of ?)

January 21, 2023Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

Continued from Part 1

Determine and Describe Dependency Issues Precisely

When debugging an issue always thoroughly check everything that could be wrong with your own code and configurations before looking at factors your code is dependent on. Never assume the issue is with a dependency; find the dependency and describe it in detail. Not doing so leads to longer times to resolution with people focusing on why it isn’t their problem. In the rare circumstance where the dependency issue cannot be clearly identified, include a complete and concise description of what you have checked in your own work before asking others to check theirs.

Clean Your Code as You Go

It is easy to slip into the “I will clean it up later” mindset because you honestly intend to. More often than not, it does not happen because of shifting priorities. At the minimum, you should do your clean ups as you do your check-ins. You will also find it easier to work with your code if it is neatly formatted and well organized as it makes questionable designs stand out more.

Scripts Must Be Non-Destructive

Scripts should always check for perquisites and be written in such a way that if they are run repeatedly the actions will result in a fully functioning system.

When adding files or folders, check for existence and back up existing before changing. Multiple versions of backups should be kept. My general rule of thumb is 3 versions. Older versions should be removed as part of the script to prevent disk space issues.

A rollback approach should always be tested before running the script.

Common Sense Isn’t, Especially for Code (Part 1 of ?)

January 13, 2023Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

Most of these will seem obvious. If they aren’t, you’re welcome.

No property files in EARs or WARs

Placing property files in a deployment package defeats the purpose of being able to update configuration values without a deployment.

Also be sure that your code supports immediate updates through property files using mechanisms such as a cache that checks for last update or a re-load mechanism that can be fired by the property file change.

Use Naming Conventions

When creating new projects and packages, either follow existing naming conventions/patterns or raise the need for a change and refactor all of them.

Always Use Relative Paths

Should not require a mention as we all know it, but seems folks forget it frequently so this is a reminder.

Always Document

Projects must have a readme that explains how to use the project.

Scripts should have usage notes at the top of the script. Preferably, the script should also do parameter validation and print out usage notes on validation failure.

All Connections Need Timeout Set

If all calls can be managed to a singlet timeout value, set it using an application-server level configuration. If not, manage it on a per connection basis with a single property file external of the deployment archive (usually the EAR or WAR) containing the timeouts to allow for updates to timeouts without compilation.

Source Control Check-in Minimum Daily

January 5, 2023Scott S NelsonLeave a comment

Daily check-in of code is not optional for professional developers. There may be a rare circumstance where this is not the case, and such exceptions must be approved by the technical lead on the project on a daily basis.

An increment of work should seldom take longer than a day. All code that does not break the build should be checked in prior to leaving work for the day.

Code should be checked in each and every time it successfully builds and passes basic functional testing.

You should know the status of your own in-progress code at all times. If you don’t, then you cannot probably manage source control and the application is at risk for both difficult defects and issues during integration testing.