3rd Party Applications – a warning from history!

I’ve just been reminded about the danger of blindly using 3rd party code into the work that I’m doing.  There are a plethora of issues with just taking someone else’s work in and using it without a technical due diligence.  In this particular circumstance its going to delay the launch of a web based product for nearly a week while the offending bit of code is removed and a replacement (well checked out this time) is supplanted in its place.

It brings up the notion of what is a ‘reliable and trust worthy source’ for something that will be embedded deep inside your work.  Its quite some time since we inherited the aforementioned atrocity thats now plaguing us and the issues its causing have only just become apparent as we get into the bug fixing and optimising stages of development.  We don’t know the author of the code personally (I’m not sure if this would have protected us any) and we’re not 100% sure we understand the approach.  So we’re left with the inevitable conclusion that we have been (a) a little unlucky and (b) let ourselves down with not doing the background checking we should have when the rogue code was added to the project.

The thing that narks me personally is that I’ve been here before.  I’ve been caught out in similar circumstances from time to time and I’m old enough to know better (apparently).  The lessons learned here are:

• To not take short cuts or make presumptions on due diligence when dealing with a 3rd party.
• Make sure you have a barrier between your product and 3rd party code – a safety gate.
• Enforce coding standards on 3rd party contributors and don’t be afraid to send stuff back that isn’t up to standard.
• Don’t forget the three points above.

Still, onward and upward.

 

 

I wanna Zendit

There is an app for everything.  Absolutely everything.  The launch of a new app then should be nothing really to shout about or seen to be remarkable.
App development has, for me, past the creationist point, the 7 days of building are over.  We’re now into app evolution, Darwinism for a digital era.
One of those app evolution’s was launched yesterday, an app called Zendit.

The app is designed to directly send captured video and images to the cloud and then generate conversations based on the object.  So with Facebook, you create your crowd – your friends and then drop content into that crowd and see whose interested.

Zendit works the other way around, the crowd forms around the object/subject. Sending a picture or video of your beloved pet or car into Zendit will create a conversation around that object – so everyone else that loves the same dog or car as you will be in the conversation and it wont be boring anyone who doesn’t love the same stuff.

If you like social media, chat, discussion and debate but want all that time and effort to be focused around your core interests then give Zendit a try, you can download it on the App Store now.