Automating programmers

May 31, 2007, 11:08 AM — Listen to the column Automating Programmers, or visit our Podcast Center to hear more by James Gaskin.



Too many companies have become software developers by accident. A program here, a program there, and HR puts an ad out for a developer. Suddenly deadlines are issued and just as quickly missed, and servers groan under multiple compilation jobs.



Before your company gets buried by disorganized groups of programmers tweaking scripts to gather modules scattered across the network for a nightly code build, get organized. Electric Cloud (.com) offers a rare commodity: tools for the back end of software development and compilation. Most companies focus on the cool front end application development tools, but too much time gets wasted on the backend.



John Ousterhout, chairman and founder of Electric Cloud, gave me four clues that a company needs some program development automation help. If you have programmers, you probably need some help controlling them.



First, says Ousterhout, the number of projects gets out of hand. If you're making software for embedded devices, for example, you may have to compile 40 variants for various chip set differences each compilation. That means you need some automation.



Second, developer teams now cover the globe. One "compile master" may not even be awake when some programmers are at work.



Third, the agile development craze means multiple short programming cycles, rather than spending weeks or months coding big programs between compiles. Checking progress often means compiling often.



Finally, the regulators want software build audits, too. Give a regulator one log file and they want the world, and the world includes software development. I can't wait until Congress weighs in on Java library dependencies.



Electric Cloud's first product, Electric Accelerator, used hardware clusters and parallel compilation algorithms to speed code compilation. Electric Commander replaces all the compile scripts, good ones and bad ones and those patched and patched and patched again, with a repeatable compile process framework. Since scripts mysteriously degrade every time they run, a solid script library foundation might reduce more stress than Free Massage Fridays.



Getting organization tools early for your programmers will be easier than retraining them later. You can't force programmers to follow new rules, but you can dangle spiffy new tools that subtly organize them in front of their noses. You can't teach old programmers new tricks, but you can entice them with new, more organized, tools.