If you are on the search for a tool, know that no tool or framework is so comprehensive to cover an exhaustive use-cases. So whatever choices you make, it is likely that you will encounter someone from the anti-camp. Hear their arguments, just be sure of your requirements. Otherwise you will waste your time in search of the best tool!

While we are at it, here is a related point: since no tool can meet all your requirements, you may have to learn another tool.

With that said, here is a list of the tools I’ve acquired and use:

Computer Environment: You might buy the best tools but if you have to run them on a lousy computer, your productivity is still hampered. I have been using a MacBook for the past three years and I don’t regret the investment. Why? Because it just works. Do yourself a favor and get the best computer you can buy.

Programming Language: Another important choice for software developers is the programming language, since you have to literally live with it. Of all the languages I have used, I prefer Python. It is simple, hence easy to learn; it has got great community around; got many frameworks for both desktop and web development; and an added advantage of a simple programming language is that when you return after a break, you can quickly pick-up and move fast.

Virtual Environment: Without an virtual environment, changes you make impact the main installation, sometimes disturbing the system behavior. Virtual environments give you the flexibility of experimentation & isolating your experimental changes.

I use both virtualbox, which is a full fledged virtual emulator and virtualenv which is a python virtual environment.

Wireframe Sketchers: It is better to visualize the design before writing a single line of code. That will limit the cost of changes later. I play around with many desktop-based & web-based tools for wireframe but I keep returning to pencil (the real paper & pencil and the simple Pencil extension for Firefox)

IDE/Text Editor: Integrated Development Environments are packaged with tons of tools to assist software development. But, I find them bloated for a Python based web development. A text editor meets almost all requirements of python based web development.

Recently, I switched to TextMate and I am happy with it. It comes with lots of bundles that ease your way of working.

Frameworks: Frameworks provide a means for all the common activities of software development like UI design, events controllers, DB access and session management (in case of web apps). That said, frameworks can also be restrictive, so ensure the frameworks support the use-cases you have in mind.

I regularly use wxWidgets for desktop programming & web2py for web development. They are not perfect and there is always a better framework; but they fit my needs.

Source Control: It is suicidal to start software development without a source control tool, even for a solo-developer development (like me). There is an associated benefit of using a source control system: using commit comments, you can keep track of your progress in implementing features & fixing bugs.

Mercurial is my choice for source control. On mac, I use Murky as the mercurial client.

Bug / Issue / Features Database: Bugs & features should be collected in a single bucket rather than being littered in papers or in text files. Most of the version control systems provide a bug tracking system too.

I use the bug / issue database that comes along with Bitbucket.

(Automated) Testing Tools: after a certain threshold, it is impossible test all features manually. you should automate as much as possible and resort to manual testing only for those aspects that need to be tested manually like look & feel of the application. There is a whole lot of testing tools available depending on the aspects of testing, for example functionality testing and load testing.

I don’t have a choice or a preference when it comes to automated testing tools. I’ve used Python unit-testing, Selenium and now learning Robot Framework. But I’m still on the look out for a better (read one that makes functional & load testing easier) testing tool.

Hosting: Web applications need a hosting environment. For my simple need Google AppEngine and WebFaction are sufficient enough.

I’m eager to know what are the tools you use? Leave them in comments.

Related Posts:

• Simplify Your Life With A Simple Application
• Now you can create cases via Twitter
• Why I chose web2py for developing YATSY?

Tools of Software Craft is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

It is not just that the domains have become too large. Now, we are expected to posses skills in many of the associated fields to be successful. It is not enough that you can focus and capture amazing pictures, but you need to be able to persuade clients to engage you for assignments, negotiate fees and also effectively manage time.

When all of these crowd your mind, you tend to forget things – some times even the crucial things. That leads to disasters which can’t be forgiven, because you knew you had to do it, you knew how to do it, yet forgot to do it.

That is how proposals are emailed to wrong clients and product upgrades are done without shuting down email servers!

But is there a remedy? Can this be solved?

“Yes,” says Atul Gawande in his book, The Checklist Manifesto. If not obvious from the book title, he recommends us to use checklists.

I stand by checklists, because I use them and I have found their effectiveness.

Because I’m convinced of the effectiveness of checklists, I have created a web-application to be a repository of checklists.

It is only the first version. But you can already create checklists and tag them. I have list of additional features to implement (like delete, modify checklists, share in social media etc.), Still you can mail me your suggestions.

Now its your time to go and create checklists, because you don’t want to make stupid mistakes.

Related Posts:

• Tools of Software Craft
• Now you can create cases via Twitter
• Why I chose web2py for developing YATSY?

Simplify Your Life With A Simple Application is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

Here is how YATSY (a simple case management system for Google App Engine) is integrated with Twitter.

Isn’t that simple? Follow @yatsy; once yatsy follows back, send a direct message to yatsy to create a case. YATSY system will read this DM and create a case & will respond back.

Having Twitter Integration is a double edge sword. If you provide a fantastic customer service it will be known in the social media. On the other hand, if you do a lousy job, it will spread like a wild fire. Yet, if you monitor Twitter Streams, you’ll be able to improve your products and customer service too.

Now for the techies. How did I implement Twitter Integration? YATSY itself is written using web2py, a web-framework in Python. Twitter streams are parsed using python-twitter, a simple & efficient Python wrapper for Twitter API.

Steps Forward

• Use Google App Engine Cron to initiate twitter parsing & case creation (now one need to explicitly execute the function)
• Using the same Cron facility for auto-follow
• Use a message queue for IN/OUT messages (if you know a good message queue implementation in Python, please leave a comment)
• Integrate (case) notes with Twitter

If your hands are itching to test this, go ahead and follow yatsy & once yatsy follow you back, DM your case text.

If you are interested in checking out the code or want to do a code review, head to Google Code page

Related Posts:

• Why I chose web2py for developing YATSY?
• A First shot at web2py
• Tools of Software Craft

Now you can create cases via Twitter is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

While striving to keep these boundary conditions for end-users, developers prefer a language (and framework) that enable them to transform their brilliant ideas into working code quickly.

With such a thought process, I searched for a framework to develop YATSY – an open source helpdesk application for small businesses. As the title says, I settled on web2py because of the following reasons:

It is on Python: If you didn’t know, Python can be learnt intuitively. In the recent years lots of Python-based frameworks have evolved improving developer’s productivity drastically. Python places minimal constraints on the developer; hence development is generally quick.

It adapts to Schema Changes: Schema changes are an inherent part of development; especially if you follow the open-source mantra of ‘release early; release often’. Web2py automatically changes db schema if it detects a change in the underlying model. You don’t need to drop and recreate schema or issue alter table commands. One less head-ache for developers.

Its a self-contained Framework: web2py is based on MVC pattern and it comes bundled with most of the components needed for web-development – authentication, authorization, form generation & validation,  internationalization, admin interface, ajax (jQuery) and so on.

Its well documented: Yes it is a pity that the official manual has to be bought but Massimo, the lead developer, seems to have a justification for it. I went ahead and bought the manual and I should it is fantastic – he explains each component of the stack pretty well.

It can be installed easily: It is based on Python,  but it is not a pre-requisite to run web2py. Download, Unzip, Execute are all that is needed to get started with web2py development – on any OS.

It can be hosted on AppEngine: This is a big plus for me. Google AppEngine is the only cloud hosting that I am aware of that provides a free hosting for Python based applications. So potential users of YATSY can try free GAE hosting before moving to paid hosting. Deploying web2py application to AppEngine is a one-click affair.

It can be hosted elsewhere too: Web2py provides the flexibility to host the developed application anywhere Python can be installed. This means that users are not tied to GAE. If they want to install in their own servers, it is no problem.

With web2py providing the basic blocks for non-functional requirements, I find it easy to develop YATSY. You can check out the code at Google code and try it at Google AppEngine.

Related Posts:

• Now you can create cases via Twitter
• A First shot at web2py
• Tools of Software Craft

Why I chose web2py for developing YATSY? is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude

Of late, I’ve been reading a lot about cloud computing, SAAS, REST and web2.0. But I couldn’t find a way to test them. So I decided to develop an application, which I named YATSY – Yet Another Ticketing System – utilizing years of experience in customizing other helpdesk, support desk and service desk systems.

Only Google offered a free hosting (limited free hosting; with an option to upgrade) on the cloud. With its current offering Google AppEngine (GAE) supports only Python. And web2py, a python web-framework, makes it extremely easy to develop for GAE. Not only that – web2py claims to make it easy to build stand-alone applications for all the three platforms: Mac, Linux & Windows. Though web2py doesn’t have many contributed 3rd party plug-ins, I went ahead with web2py because of the above feature set.

One more negative about web2py is that it lacks a fine documentation. So it is little difficult for beginners. Yet discussions on their google group compensates for this lack.

With that said, web2py does make web-programming easy and hosting on GAE is even easier. Here is what I’ve been able to achieve.

You can see it hosted in Google AppEngine. The code is checked in Google Code.

Your comments are welcome.

Related Posts:

• Now you can create cases via Twitter
• Why I chose web2py for developing YATSY?
• Tools of Software Craft

A First shot at web2py is post from finally{}.

Author Bio : Joseph is an independent consultant helping organizations to achieve their business objectives through IT investment. You can follow him on twitter @jjude