Additional Resources

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Take a look at these additional resources for more on programming tools:

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http://www.sdmagazine.com/jolts. Software Development Magazine's annual Jolt Productivity award website is a good source of information about the best current tools.

Hunt, Andrew and David Thomas. The Pragmatic Programmer. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2000. Section 3 of this book provides an in-depth discussion of programming tools, including editors, code generators, debuggers, source-code control, and related tools.

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Vaughn-Nichols, Steven. "Building Better Software with Better Tools," IEEE Computer, September 2003, pp. 12 14. This article surveys tool initiatives led by IBM, Microsoft Research, and Sun Research.

Glass, Robert L. Software Conflict: Essays on the Art and Science of Software Engineering. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Yourdon Press, 1991. The chapter titled "Recommended: A Minimum Standard Software Toolset" provides a thoughtful counterpoint to the moretools-is-better view. Glass argues for the identification of a minimum set of tools that should be available to all developers and proposes a starting kit.

Jones, Capers. Estimating Software Costs. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1998.

Boehm, Barry, et al. Software Cost Estimation with Cocomo II. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2000. Both the Jones and the Boehm books devote sections to the impact of tool use on productivity.

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Checklist: Programming Tools

• Do you have an effective IDE?

• Does your IDE support integration with source-code control; build, test, and debugging tools; and other useful functions?

• Do you have tools that automate common refactorings?

• Are you using version control to manage source code, content, requirements, designs, project plans, and other project artifacts?

• If you're working on a very large project, are you using a data dictionary or some other central repository that contains authoritative descriptions of each class used in the system?

• Have you considered code libraries as alternatives to writing custom code, where available?

• Are you making use of an interactive debugger?

• Do you use make or other dependency-control software to build programs efficiently and reliably?

• Does your test environment include an automated test framework, automated test generators, coverage monitors, system perturbers, diff tools, and defect-tracking software?

• Have you created any custom tools that would help support your specific project's needs, especially tools that automate repetitive tasks?

• Overall, does your environment benefit from adequate tool support?