Software development is evolving and expanding. There are many possibilities for software developers to make development fast and straightforward. These opportunities help businesses grow and be successful.
Developing reliable software is a complex process. To make it productive, developers need the correct practices.
Here are the basic best practices for software development in DataEngi that help us in our projects.
Use Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD)
CI and CD are the modern methods of software development. According to CI, developers regularly merge code changes in the central repository, where automated builds and tests are performed. CD is a continuation of continuous integration because it automatically deploys all code changes to the test and production environment after the build phase.
Use Dependency Injection (DI)
Dependency injection is used to implement a loosely coupled architecture to obtain more testable, accompanied, and extensible code. It is one of the main principles developers should follow to write quality code.
Use Strong Type System than the Weak Type System
A strong type system allows data engineers to get more stable apps and have a much higher level of changes. It is especially relevant for banking, insurance, financial programs, and high-load backends.
Use Unit Testing for all Business Logic
Unit testing is the basis of software development. A qualitative unit test is an essential part of development. If tests are thoughtful, they can significantly reduce the number of bugs.
Mock your Dependencies
When testing a component of the program, all its dependencies are isolated with the help of mocks. Thus, we test a particular component and do not test dependent components. Changing any component does not lead to the breakage of all tests. It's like we're testing all the components of a system isolated from each other.
As a result:
we speed up development
it is easier to add changes
tests are more elegant
programmers add more tests
quality is growing.
Prefer to Use Cloud than Self-hosted Solutions
Cloud has almost unlimited resources, load balancing, non-binding to specific hardware components, and scalability. It is possible to add or release a resource at any time. It is great for rapidly growing businesses or companies with seasonal fluctuations in demand. It's a cost-effective way to scale resources and servers consolidation.
Use Containers and Kubernetes
Kubernetes tool allows managing any number of containers effectively. It is an open-source platform that automates container operations. It helps developers fully implement a reliable container-based infrastructure in production environments. The main Kubernetes advantage is to obtain a platform for planning and running containers on clusters of physical or virtual machines.
Use Agile for Project Management
An Agile approach is a group of methodologies that strive to improve the product produced through repeated work cycles and constant feedback from customers. Agile philosophy is characterized by the flexibility and speed of the team and the maximum transparency of work processes. It helps the team quickly respond to feedback from customers and clients, thereby constantly improving the product.
Deliver App Logs to Cloud
Application logs are beneficial when it comes to troubleshooting an application. Cloud providers like AWS and GCP have advanced services to work with application logs.
Automate API Documentation (Swagger)
API documentation support is essential for products developing actively. But it is worth remembering the relevance of this data.
With Swagger, users and machines understand REST API capabilities better without access to code. Developers can quickly create documentation and send it to other developers or customers. Swagger's primary goal is to minimize the amount of work required to connect individual services and reduce the time needed to document the service accurately.
Use Functional Programming (to Work on Higher Abstraction Level)
Applying functional programming principles helps reduce code complexity. It provides advantages such as efficiency, nested functions, error-free code, and parallel programming. The approach focuses on what needs to be done and less on how to do it, emphasizing efficiency and optimization.
We hope that our list of software development methods will be useful to you and help developers simplify the development process.