Section 1.4. What Does

1.4. What Does "Practical" Mean?

What makes something practical? The title of this book strongly suggests that its contents are about practical solutions to common problems in development environments. Here is what practical means for the tools used in development environments:

• Available (whether open or closed source)

• Appropriately priced (for open software, this often means no cost)

• Usableinstallation and configuration to match the local development process is possible, the tool doesn't crash regularly, there aren't too many bugs, and documentation is adequate

• Can eventually produce software for the platforms used by the customer

On the other hand, impractical tools for development environments are those that are:

• Deadno longer sold or supported

• Too expensive to even consider spending any time evaluating

• Tortuous to get working or configured as needed, or impossible to maintain and upgrade

Abstract frameworks, conceptual models, and design patterns are all useful for categorizing solutions to problems encountered in development environments, but the aim of this book is to provide ideas that are more practical. The basic areas of projects that are summarized in the next chapter are ideas that are applicable to all software projects, whatever the product's purpose is and whoever the customers are.