Mobile

I tried to push a plan for bootstrapping an automated integration test system for our Android and iOS applications. The plan was based on similar strategies I’d used, or seen used, at other companies. It didn’t fit well with the current situation and workflows. I failed to take those differences into account and the initiative failed.

I’ve had a number of occasions where I needed direct access to an Android device that wasn’t connected to the computer in front of me. I can usually SSH into the remote host machine and use ADB to try to debug the situation. If the simple stuff doesn’t work, I eventually start using ADB screencap to get a look at what’s on the device. If I’m lucky, I can remote desktop to the host. If not, I end up copying the images back to my machine to view them.

Providing a great user experience under a variety of performance situations means designing for a variety of expectations. Defining a great user experience should include performance budgets for the various pieces of the experience. Some basic examples include: Application startup, Image loading, and UI responsiveness.

Normal releases are consistent and predictable. Scheduled releases benefit developers, testers, support and PR. Unpredictable releases can cause communication problems, stress and fatigue. Those can lead to poor software quality and developer turn-over.

We all want to ship as fast as possible, while making sure we can control the quality of our product. Continuous deployment means we can ship at any time, right? Well, we still need to balance the unstable and stable parts of the codebase.