RVS_Spinner

ic design, and accessibility. For me, the most valuable technique, has been rapid, high-quality prototyping. I have been abusing Apple's TestFlight[5] beta release system, and have been using it to make regular (usually, a couple a day) releases to the rest of the team, who are mostly non-tech people. I've made over 600 releases. The first release was made less than a month after first code submission. The way I use it, is that I run what I call "constant beta." The app is always at "ship" Quality, even if incomplete. This means that the code people get, is fully operational, for the currently developed feature set, and they aren't using some kind of "lash-up" kludgy throwaway code. They are working with the actual code that will ship. This has the advantage of constant vetting by Apple. They don't test TestFlight to the same level as the App Store, but they look for things like unsupported API usage, code signing issues, and obvious quality issues (like crashes). In at least one case, their testing found a crash that I missed. Once the first release for a version has been vetted (takes a day or so), subsequent build releases, within that version, are approved almost immediately, so I get quick turnaround. If the testers encounter crashes, I get a fairly useless report. If I use a Ouija board, I can often figure out the general part of the application affected. With this workflow, we can have a highly iterative process, with aesthetics, usability, and general UX, being tested, almost from the start. It also means that integration testing (the most important kind), starts almost immediately, and continues, throughout the development lifecycle. It also means that I throw away a lot of good code. Most of those widgets I referenced were once in the app, and we decided not to use them, so I broke them into open-source packages, for reuse in future projects (I tend to eat my own dog food. I have a lot of packages in the app). I'm pretty good at interpreting designs. I can accept Figma, Photoshop, Sketch, Illustrator, Napkin Sketch, or Hand-Wavy Verbal Description, and turn it into UX. I usually have something for the designers to try out, within minutes. Most of the actual app assets are generated (and stored in the app) as vector PDF, via Illustrator, and I will often redesign raster art, into vector. The designers and non-tech stakeholders seem to like it. WFM. YMMV. [0] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_Spinner [1] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_MaskButton [2] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_Checkbox [3] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_RetroLEDDisplay [4] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_AutofillTextField [5] https://developer.apple.com/testflight/

tant type of testing, in my opinion) starts almost immediately. Since this is iOS, I can use Apple's TestFlight beta-testing system, to distribute the builds to the non-technical stakeholders. I generally do a couple of releases a day. I have done over 600 releases, so far. Bugs get found quickly. It's important to find bugs as close to the point they were created, as possible. Since this is integration testing, whole subsystems get tested; not just individual modules. Also, the testers are much closer to the actual target audience, than you would get with professional QA teams. I tend to prefer the use of test harnesses, as opposed to unit tests, for this reason[0]. A lot of times (it has happened numerous times, in this project) we "get what we want," and realize that it isn't actually what we want, or it's unusable/impossible. A lot of times, you can't get to that point, unless you have built the app pretty completely. The absolute worst thing that can happen, is that you get exactly what you asked for. That's one of the problems with using outsourced shops and loosely-coupled distributed development. These techniques require heavy-duty specification, and those specifications often end up as rock-hard cement. No one wants to change them; even when it becomes clear that the result will be less-than-satisfactory. I've been through that, a number of times. But the crap-quality MVP isn't (in my opinion) an acceptable solution, either. Every now and then, one gets a home run, but, more frequently, we end up with foul balls. The brand gets damaged, the engineers quit in disgust, the money gets used up, and it becomes difficult to pivot. One thing that I often do, is spin off code that I'm not gonna use, into subprojects, for reuse in other projects. Here are a couple of examples: https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_Spinner https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_CalendarInput I'm not using these in the project (they were written for the project, but we decided they weren't appropriate), but they are available for other projects. [0] https://littlegreenviper.com/various/testing-harness-vs-unit...

t (for example, SDKs or drivers). In that case, the timelines are completely separate. If you look at my GH repos, you'll see a whole bunch of these projects, including some rather strange ones, like an XML duration parser[0]. These are the types of projects that I extract. In some cases, I end up not using the extracted project in my main project (happens to some of my UI widgets). In that case, even though I am not using it, I still have an excellent project for the future. Here's an example[1]. I have ended up not using the spinner in my own work, as it was too obtrusive a widget, but it's nice to have it available for future projects. [0] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_ParseXMLDuration [1] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_Spinner