The Martian Principles for Successful Enterprise Systems: 20 Lessons Learned from NASA?s Mars Exploration Rover Mission

by Ronald Mak

• ISBN13: 9780470046319
• ISBN10: 0470046317
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2006-07-01
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

For the first time ever, the senior architect and lead developer for a key enterprise system on NASA's ongoing Mars Exploration Rover mission shares the secrets to one of the most difficult technology tasks of all-successful software development Written in a conversational, brief, and to-the-point style, this book presents principles learned from the Mars Rover project that will help ensure the success of software developed for any enterprise system Author Ronald Mak imparts anecdotes from his work on the Mars Rover and offers valuable lessons on software architecture, software engineering, design patterns, code development, and project management for any software, regardless of language or platform

Table of Contents

About the Author

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Martian Principles

Don't reinvent the wheel

Someone Else Has Already Solved Your Problem

Understand What Your Added Value Is

Use Commercial Software Whenever Practicable

You won't do better than what's already been done

Adhere to Industry Standards and Best Practices

Seek User Groups, Chat Forums, Online Documentation, Books, and the Like

Do Not Gum Up the Plumbing

Your customers don't know what they want

Do Not Push Too Hard on the Requirements

Do Rapid Prototyping and Lots of User Testing

Customers Are the Best Testers

Get something working as soon as possible

The First End-to-End Thread Is Critical

Working Code Builds Confidence

Always Build on Top of Working Code

Use sound software engineering practices

Use a Component-Based Architecture

Use Design Patterns

Get All the Development Team Members to Agree

Don't trust the client applications

Be Very Paranoid-They Are Out to Get You

If You Do Not Break It, They Will

Plan to make changes

Do Not Hard-Code Values

Use External Editable Parameter Files

Implement a "Read Parameters" Method

Maintain Client Parameter Files Centrally on the Server

Identify the Parameter Values

You can't predict the future

Make Each Service Dynamically Reconfigurable

Create Field-Replaceable, Plug-and-Play Services

Hot Redeployment Allows Reconfiguring without Rebooting

Make Each Service Loosely Coupled

Take a Peek into the Future

Don't tie your services into knots

Keep Your Services Independent of Each Other

Services Should Treat Other Services As Equals

Build early, build often! The Major Challenge Is Not Code Development but Code Integration

Use a Source Code Repository

Maintain a Separate Environment in Which to Build and Deploy

"What middleware?" should be your greatest compliment

The Middleware Should Be Invisible to Users

Good Middleware Creates Ideal Virtual Worlds for the End Users

Expose the invisible

Put Hooks in the Middleware

Do Runtime, Real-Time Monitoring

Log everything

Do Not Turn Off Logging in Your Production Code. "Log Mining" Reveals Usage Patterns

Know the data

Learn the Data Usage Patterns

Create Appropriate Application and Middleware Data Models

Map to Practical Physical Data Models

Adapt to Third-Party and Legacy Data

Know when it will break

Do Lots of Stress Testing

If You Do Not Find Out What the Limits Are, Your Users Surely Will

Don't fail due to unexpected success

Missions May Last Longer Than Expected

Data Repositories May Grow Larger Than Planned

Project Management and Software Engineering

Strong leadership drives a project to success

A Good Architect Must Also Be a Good Leader

Any Architecture Is Only As Good As Its Implementation

Strong Project Management Is Necessary for Success

Project Milestones Are Opportunities for Demos and Rebalancing

The Project Milestones Near the End Allow You to Get Your Proje

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.