Welcome to this month’s look at a few recent stories from the software development world that hopefully pique your interest. If you want to check out last month’s news digest, simply click on the following link. Leverage any insights found in the current digest to help you and your team deliver applications more quickly and with fewer errors. Good luck!
The market for crowdsourced QA and software testing services remains on the upswing, according to a July article in WhaTech. Last month’s Betica blog post covered the concept in brief, looking at how Applause, a company championing crowdtesting, calls upon upwards of 300,000 testers for a variety of projects. The WhaTech article also noted the emerging popularity of services similar to those provided by Applause as a key driver of this nascent market’s growth.
The QA services market study by ReportsWeb referenced in the article predicts an annual growth rate of over 10 percent through the end of this decade. Companies are largely using crowdsourced testing to derive real-time opinions on product development, overall software quality, and verifying the efficacy of developers’ bug fixing efforts.
In addition to crowdsourced testing, the QA services market is also seeing a growth in testing companies focused on a specific industry. These companies are better able to serve verticals due to their experience in the specific domain. The article noted Infosys’s testing service offerings aimed at specialized business sectors, including finance, healthcare, insurance, and retail.
Still, a vast majority – 88 percent – of the current software testing services market performs application testing across a variety of platforms and business sectors. Offerings focused on verticals, like those provided by Infosys, are expected to become more prevalent over the next few years. The financial services industry holds the highest share of this vertical-oriented testing market at 34 percent.
Click on the following link if you are interested in reviewing the ReportsWeb study from the article.
The benefits of meditation and mindfulness are numerous, with lower stress levels and an improved ability to focus being only two notable examples. What if using mindfulness techniques could actually lead to writing better software? That is the concept of an article by Anne Krog Iversen published this week in SD Times.
Iversen feels that mindfulness helps keep “brainpower in a positive flow” which leads to staying focused on the programming task at hand. She notes the practice also boosts a software engineer’s emotional intelligence, which keeps their morale and ability to collaborate at their highest. These are important things in an era where Agile and DevOps are so popular throughout the software development world.
She recommends taking at least 15 minutes each day for an in-office meditation session; being sure to find a nice quiet place for the practice. Taking a minute of silence before each meeting is another good idea to ensure everyone stays focused and attentive. Of course, that latter tip essentially contradicts the improv session advice from last week’s article on improving Agile standup meetings.
Ultimately, finding any means to foster productivity is a worthy goal. “For a software developer, having a clear, balanced and focused mind can be a tremendous asset while striving to produce high-quality software and aiming to balance work with life,” said Iversen.
Stay tuned to the Betica Blog for additional insights from the software development world. Thanks for reading!