New Year's Resolutions for Software Developers

[Larry.C]

My New Year's Resolution is to...
1	Capture Better Requirements for Software Development - by Laurence Colvin Asking the right questions and capturing the right amount of detail is critical to a successful project. I resolve to use better techniques to improve my requirements gathering process and avoid costly delays in my future projects.
2	Always Consider an Object-Oriented Approach when Starting New Projects in LabVIEW - by Mark Narvidas Object Oriented Programming is a very powerful approach to software architecture and programming that allows writing modular and reusable software systems. It is not only LabVIEW-specific and it is actually commonly used in the majority of larger-scale applications.
3	Use the Default Case as a Catch and Not an Implementation - by James Kent A ‘catch’ in LabVIEW, as well as other languages, is a piece of code that deals with exceptions to what is normal operation when running an application. This special code deals with anomalous events that require special handling so as to not disrupt the running of the application, and to reset the application to a safe state, or recover gracefully and restart normal operation of the program.
4	Create Better Performing Code - by Chris Jones An often overlooked aspect whilst developing code is performance. In many cases we don’t have to consider this due to the advancements in processor speed and memory size, as well as LabVIEWs built in ability to improve our code without us having to worry about it. However, in some cases we can come across a situation where our code simply won’t run fast enough or uses too much memory. My LabVIEW New Year’s resolution is to write better performing code.
5	Make Icons for All of My VIs - by Ian Sheppard Do you ever leave your icon with the default icon LabVIEW gives you? Perhaps you think you don't have time to stop and make icons, or you can't be bothered. Yet icons are an important part of writing good LabVIEW code.
6	Document My Code Properly - by Chris Garratt Have you ever received a piece of code from a colleague or friend and when you opened it you had no idea what was going on? You saw a collection of random VIs with nothing to tell you what they do or how they work? Don’t be that guy!
7	Effectively Use State Machines - by Lanxi Zhang I have used the stacked sequence structure in the past to execute different parts of my code in order. In the New Year, I resolve to use the more advanced State Machines Architecture in designing my user interface in LabVIEW.
8	Make My VIs Less Fat - by Shruti Vasudev Do you ever feel like your VI is too bulky or 'fat'?. This could sometimes be because of repeated parts of code that you can in fact 'slim' down. This example shows you how to use Sub VIs inside a  VI to make your VI less bulky and clearer to understand.
9	Use Source Code Control Software With LabVIEW to Manage My Application Development - by Supreeth Koushik Using Source Code Control (SCC) software (or version control software) is very important in a multi-developer environment. It provides a single depot for the various versions of your code and provides tools to make comparing and merging the work of different developers easy, along with a number of other benefits.
10	Use Type Definitions - by Chiara Alessandri I don’t know how many times I’ve been using the state machine architecture when I’ve suddenly realised I want to add an extra case to the enum I’m using as the case structure selector, or change the order, or something like that.

New Year's Resolutions

At the beginning of the year the ancient Babylonians made promises to their gods that they would return borrowed objects and pay their debts. The Romans started the year by making declarations to the god Janus, for whom the month of January is named. In the Medieval era, after Christmas the knights took the "peacock vow" to profess their commitment to chivalry.

Today it is common for us to make New Year's Resolutions to help others around us and hopefully better ourselves in the process. So what better way to start the year by making some software development resolutions which can aid us in producing better code and more successful projects!

Previously "Engineered Holidays"

Christmas - 12 Days of Christmas

International Talk Like a Pirate Day - AVAST! Unleash Your Inner Pirate with LabVIEW

International Star Wars Day - May the 4th Be With You