Delphi Quality-Driven Development

Software development is a complex and continuous process. The quality of the end result—the actual software—depends on many variables. Regardless of the size of the team, be it a solo developer, or a team with tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people involved, we cannot always fully control all the aspects of the software development process.

However, we can bring some order into the chaos, and by using well-established and proven practices, we can increase the quality of the software we are producing, and with that, increase customer satisfaction, ultimately improving the success of the software product.

There are always other factors that determine the success (viability) of the software, but a bug-ridden product is never going to be a successful one, unless users are forced to use it for reasons beyond their control.

When it comes to reducing the number of current and future bugs and other quality issues in the software, there is one thing in particular that can and will do more for improving software quality than all the others combined: automated testing.

However, the ability to test software requires way more than the mere act of testing or writing testable code, and covering only those two aspects would fail to address other significant factors that contribute not only to the overall quality of the produced software, but also our ability to successfully write and test its code.

While topics surrounding testing and writing testable code do comprise the most significant part of this book, all other parts of the development process that also contribute to the software quality are covered, to give a better understanding of their roles and impact in the whole process. From planning and designing, through development and testing, to deployment.

Besides that, every developer wants to produce high-quality and successful software, while not all of them are very fond of testing. Focusing on testing alone, which many of the testing-related books do, means losing some of the potential audience. What is worse, you lose those that would benefit from it the most.

Focusing on the end goal, producing high-quality software, instead of the journey and specific methodology, also allows us to adapt and change the process as we go, instead of sticking to some practice that is not fully applicable to a particular situation.

In our search for successful practices that will help us in doing our job better and faster, we tend to forget why we are using them.