bridging the coding practice gap of software development in industry and academia regardless of...

8/13/2019 Bridging the Coding Practice Gap of Software Development in Industry and Academia Regardless of Programming

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BRIDGING THE CODING PRACTICE GAP OF SOFTWARE

DEVELOPMENT IN INDUSTRY AND ACADEMIA

REGARDLESS OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE

ALFRED MENSAH ATOMBOH

B. ED (INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)


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Background to study

Coding practices are a combination of a set of acceptable rules or standards set by

developers and experts that are applied to make source code bug-free and readable in order

to promote efficient development of software. It is also used as a standard for uniformity in

a team development environment or outsourced work to reduce errors and the time spent

reviewing code. Best coding practices evolve by first applying accepted rules and standards

and then reflecting on the rules or standard for improvement. From platform to platform

developers advocate different coding practices just as from one development house to

another. These varieties finds their way into academia and thus complicate issue for the

graduate who has to unlearn and in some cases learn new practices in order to fit into a one

development house or another.

A recent study by researchers at the University of Texas and Stanford University into web

programming that incorporate the cloud service reported that more emphasis should be

placed on security processes in coding practices to solve the problem vulnerabilities of

application programming interfaces (APIs) services. Source code analysis was advocated to

catch errors automatically. A study conducted by Microsoft in April 2012 identified single

sign on (SSO) services as a vulnerability and advocated for a more consistent approach to

integration through the use of templates provided to web developers and recommended

performing analysis in an iterative fashion, since the complexity of such systems make it

difficult to carry out comprehensive automatic testing. (Bubinas, 2013). In another breathe,

an article for the best fifteen coding practices for web programming listed commenting and

documenting, consistent indentation, avoid obvious comments, code grouping, code

refactoring, separation of code and data, read open source code, object oriented vs.


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procedural, alternate syntax inside templates, capitalize SQL special words, consistent

temporary names, file and folder organization, limit line length, avoid deep nesting, DRY

principle and consistent naming scheme (Guzel, 2011).

These studies on web programming is a tip on the iceberg of the multitude and varieties of

coding practices that are advocated as there are programming branches on different

platform that exists. I therefore seek to apply scientific principles to research on bridging

the coding practices gap of software development in industry and academia regardless of

programming language.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

In order to achieve the ultimate aim of bridging the coding practices gap of software development in

industry and academia regardless of programming language, the following objectives in the form of

research questions would receive the researchers attention:

1. Will a unified coding practice work regardless of programming language?2. Will a unified coding practice work regardless of development house?3. Will a unified coding practice work regardless of platform?4. Will a unified coding practice bridge the gap in industry and academia?

METHODOLOGY OF STUDY

I intend administering interview sampled professionals and educators, after which I would study and

collate coding practices as advocated for different programming languages and looking at the

possibility of applying them in programming languages other than intended. The coding practices of

developing houses would be obtained using interview and questionnaire. In the same vein university

programming students would sampled for them to try out coding practices as exists in industry.


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Questionnaire would be administered and the feedback from the sampled university students would

also be taken from the university to industry. Collected data would be analysed using Analysis

Toolpak add-in in Microsoft Excel and SPSS. Essential to the study is problem solving skills, extraction

of information related to a topic from raw data and identifying the trends and patterns; these skills I

possess.

CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDEGE

The study would be adding a unified body of coding practice that would hold irrespective of

programming language, development industry in-house practices and academia. It is the ultimate

aim of the study to improve the body knowledge of coding practices that would seek to bridge the

gap between industry and academia.

ibliographyBubinas, C. (2013, January 31). klocwork. Retrieved March 31, 2013, from better-coding-practices-

needed-to-secure-apis: http://www.klocwork.com/blog/static-analysis/better-coding-

practices-needed-to-secure-cloud-service-apis/

Guzel, B. (2011, March 30). net.tutsplus.com. Retrieved March 31, 2013, from top-15-best-practices-

for-writing-super-readable-code: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/top-

15-best-practices-for-writing-super-readable-code/

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