Here is the program!

You will find here all the news about the PL/SQL frameworks and libraries that you can find on internet. We will also discuss about the tools needed in each development phase (development, production, maintenance), the error management and so on.
And then, whether frameworks and libraries are commercial or open source, I will try to test them all.
I will compare their features to the needs that I know and that you expressed.
Oracle guys, you are welcome on that blog!
We also have a lot to learn from you for a better use of Oracle features.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Ownership and support for the test of PL/SQL Libraries

This is the second article on the method to test and is about “Ownership and support”.

During the installation of the library or just after, when you starts to use it, you need some support. Because when you are using the creation of another people, you need to understand the structure, the goals and the ways of creating the code. In one word to take ownership of the code.

The better code can be unusable without explanations. We will consider the different ways to offer support to users, on line with bugs trackers and forums and off line with the usual electronic documentation.

Ownership and support

Notation

  • On line help :

    • 1 point for each communication channel

    • 1 more point if a question is answered in less than 5 working days

  • Off line help : documentation

    • 0 if it is not available or does not bring nothing to the library
    • 1 point for existing in English

    • 1 point for free format (text, OpenOffice, PDF...)

    • 1 point if the main subject is detailed in more than 3 pages

    • 1 point for examples

    • 1 point for schema.

Features to evaluate

The choice has been done to evaluate the documentation in another category. The only exception will be the Quick Start guide, only noted here.

  • On line help :

    • Forum help : to discuss with the others users and the development team about the problem you have

    • Bug Tracker : to register a bug you encountered

  • Off line help :

    • Quick start guide : how to start with the library and use it as quick as possible.

This article is quite short and allows us to take a rest before the main piece of the methodology : the development feature that we will evaluate next week.

I am waiting for your opinions and feedback about that post.

Have a nice week-end and see you next week.