It’s no secret that software developers have become the weapon of choice for companies that are looking to get an edge on their competitors. Bespoke software has the ability to transform a company and improve productivity, and managing complicated online web services is only possible with a dedicated team of software developers managing the backend and a team of designers prettying up the frontend. However, while the frontend is all about design and making things look fancy, the backend is all about programming efficiency and utilising tools to make things work better.
If you’ve got a team of software developers, they need plenty of different tools, software packages and even computers in order to do their job properly. If you want to treat your software developers with the respect they need, then here are a couple of essential tools you should equip them with.
Performance Monitoring
One of the most important things for a software developer is the ability to manage performance across several different platforms and view performance metrics in order to get a good idea of how well something is working. Efficiency is paramount when creating an application and solving errors and software issues are going to be at the top of their priorities.
The only way to do this is to either roll out beta versions of software and read the feedback or get smart application metrics. The former option is slow and requires a lot of testers in order for you to get a good idea of what problems the program has, and any issues could be incredibly detrimental to your business. In other words, it’s not a good practice to use unstable software for your business. The latter option is possible with companies such as Stackify who offer a complete application performance monitoring package for developers to track all sorts of metrics in their programs such as basic hardware metrics, application logs, error tracking and database queries.
A Variety of Hardware
If you want your programs to work on various different platforms, then it’s a good idea to equip your development team with a variety of different computers. For instance, they’re going to need Mac OS computers if you want your software and services to be compatible with Mac. You’ll have to supply them with a variety of Android and iOS phones as well because mobile development is very different from desktop development.
The reason you need so many extra computers is because your developers need a way to test their software on various different platforms. Every operating system is different and there are even differences between versions of Windows. If you want your programs to be compatible with everything, then they need to be tested on a variety of different platforms.
Workflow Software
Applications such as Screen Hero are perfect for teams of developers are regularly work outside of the office. Screen Hero allows your developers to share the same screen and even work together on a project by sharing ideas, correcting each other’s mistakes and testing features. Other useful workflow applications include Trello, a web-based application that provides easy-to-follow cards that your development team can use to manage their tasks and divide labour.
Lastly, Slack is a great communication tool that enables your entire company to communicate together with simple text messages in a browser. This is useful if your employees encounter an error with the software and need to quickly let the software development team know.
