DEV Community: Stratoflow

Open Source Real Estate Software: Options For Market Professionals

Arek Krysik — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 13:03:27 +0000

In the ever-evolving real estate industry, using the right tools can significantly improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Open source software offers a customizable and cost-effective solution for real estate professionals.

From managing property details and transactions to ensuring seamless communication with clients, choosing the right real estate software platform like Openkoda can revolutionize the way you run your real estate business.

Explore how these tools can transform your operations and why they are a smart choice for modern real estate management.

The Importance of Open-Source Software in Real Estate Industry

The Importance of Open-Source Software in Real Estate Industry
Open source software plays a critical role in the real estate industry by providing a flexible and cost-effective alternative to proprietary systems.

Open source software is defined by its publicly available source code, which allows users to view, modify and redistribute the software as they see fit.

In the real estate context, open source software offers several significant advantages.

First, it allows real estate companies to tailor solutions to their specific needs without the high costs typically associated with custom, proprietary software. This customization can lead to better property maintanence through features designed specifically for particular market needs or operating styles.

In addition, the inherent flexibility of open source software means that real estate agents and property owners can integrate and adapt technologies as their needs evolve without being locked into a specific vendor or product.

However, using open source software isn’t without its challenges.

Real estate organizations may face issues such as a lack of official support and the need for technical expertise to effectively manage and customize the software.

To realize the full potential of open source solutions in the real estate industry, it is often beneficial to work with real estate custom software development companies.

Companies like Stratoflow bring specialized expertise in customizing open source platforms to meet specific business needs of real estate agencies, ensuring that the software not only integrates seamlessly with existing systems, but also scales effectively as the business grows.

Open Source Property Managers and Other Software Types

What types of real estate software are available under the open source license?

The real estate industry benefits from a variety of software solutions, particularly those designed for property management.

These property management systems (PMS) are central to streamlining the operations of real estate agency, enabling efficient management of properties, tenants, and financial transactions.

Such systems typically include features for lease management, inventory control, comprehensive data analysis, and integration with various rental and listing platforms.

Beyond property management, the real estate industry also uses customer relationship management (CRM) systems, financial management tools, and marketing automation platforms, all available under open source licenses.

These solutions help streamline customer interactions, manage finances and expenses, and automate marketing tasks.

Key Open-Source Real Estate Software Solutions To Boost Your Business

In the real estate industry, virtually every commercial software solution has an open source counterpart that offers similar, if not enhanced, functionality without the hefty price tag.

Here, we highlight five key open source real estate software solutions for real estate brokers that exemplify how comprehensive and versatile these free property management tools can be, and demonstrate their ability to effectively meet a wide range of industry needs.

Openkoda Property Management System

Openkoda Property Management Software is recognized as the leading open source system designed to streamline property management for real estate professionals.

It offers a range of features that increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the real estate industry by automating and optimizing various property management tasks such as rent payments and maintenance requests.

This software is particularly beneficial for managing both residential and commercial properties. It includes tools for tenant screening, rent tracking, and automated document generation, such as leases and invoices, that significantly reduce the manual effort involved in these processes.

It also stays with the latest proptech trends. by including some smart AI functionalities like data AI which provides custom SQL code snippets generated from natural language prompts.

The software’s AI-driven capabilities are a standout feature. It uses artificial intelligence to optimize pricing, streamline reporting, and improve communication channels between tenants and property managers.

The real estate AI functionalities within Openkoda can analyze data to provide smart property recommendations and pricing analysis, helping managers set competitive rents and identify potential market trends.

Openkoda’s open source nature means that it offers significant flexibility and user interface customization options.

This allows real estate companies to tailor the software to their specific needs without being locked into vendor-specific constraints.

You can think of an Openkoda as a solid foundation upon which you can build more advanced property management software or building management software with functionality perfectly tailored to your specific needs.

This is the perfect balance between out-of-the-box functionality and a customized approach that gives you the best value for your money.

Openkoda is a robust, flexible, open source solution for real estate companies looking to leverage technology to improve operational efficiency and greatly speed up their property management software development.

Openkoda Property Management System is a comprehensive open-source real estate tool!

Schedule your own demo today!

Key features

Tenant Screening: Implements a comprehensive screening process that includes a pre-defined tenant questionnaire and a detailed screening tool to gather critical information and assess the reliability of prospective tenants.
Custom Dashboard: A personalized dashboard that provides real-time updates on rent payment statuses, with smart reminders and AI-powered email systems to ensure timely rent collection.
Property Maintenance Management Tool: Allows tenants to report maintenance issues directly through the platform. It helps to avoid duplicate requests and streamlines communication between tenants and maintenance teams.
Automated Document Generation: Automates the creation of essential documents like leases, invoices, and receipts, reducing manual effort and improving document accuracy and speed.
Lease Generator & E-Signature: Facilitates the sending of leases with a single click and includes e-signature capabilities, reducing the need for face-to-face interactions and streamlining the lease signing process.
Price Recommendation Tool: Uses AI and machine learning to analyze property values and recommend competitive rental rates quickly based on reliable data and market comparisons.
AI Messaging: An AI-powered messaging system that helps maintain up-to-date communication with contractors, aiding in the management of messages and expenses through a unified dashboard.

Odoo Real Estate Module

Odoo, a well-known open-source business application suite, includes a real estate module that allows real estate owners to manage property listings, leasing, sales, and more.

This module is highly customizable and integrates easily with other business functions such as real estate CRM, accounting, and website management.

Key Features

Property Management: Enables listing and tracking of various properties, including details like type, location, and price.
Leasing and Sales Management: Facilitates the management of property leasing and sales processes, from listing to contract signing.
Integration with Other Modules: Seamlessly integrates with other Odoo modules for a comprehensive business management experience, such as financial accounting and CRM.
Basic Real estate ERP Functionalities

MicroRealEstate

MicroRealEstate is a computerized maintenance management system designed to help landlords manage their rental properties more effectively.

It provides a centralized platform where all property and tenant information can be stored and easily accessed. This proptech software is customizable to meet different property management needs.

Key Features

Centralized Property and Tenant Information: Store all property specifications and tenant records in one location.
Rent Lease Creation: Simplifies the creation of rent leases with customizable templates.
Collaborative Tools: Supports multiple users for team-based property management

Yash-Property

Yash-Property is a comprehensive property management system that supports the management of real estate properties.

It provides a streamlined interface for managing properties, clients and references.

Key Features:

Property and Project Management: Efficient tools for adding and managing property listings.
Testimonial Management: Allows easy collection and display of customer testimonials.
Real Estate CRM: Customizable access controls for different user roles within the system.

Property Crust

Property Crust is a web application designed to handle all aspects of real estate business management.

It integrates various functionalities essential for managing clients, sales and billing.

Key Features

Client and Lead Management: Manages information for real estate agents regarding clients and potential sales leads.
Sales Tracking: Provides tools for tracking the progress of property sales.
Billing Management: Handles all aspects of billing and financial transactions for properties.

Legacy Software Systems - How to live and not go insane with an aging software architecture?

Arek Krysik — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 11:12:00 +0000

Software developers are often regarded as architects, as their work somewhat resembles that of a civil engineer. They use numerous tools and technologies to build software, just like builders create high-rise structures.

But the reality often isn't that simple.

Sometimes an older, more janky system has to be fixed or improved, and so, now and then, developers have to step into the shoes of mechanics instead.

In today's article, we are going to answer the question of how a software developer can be a good repairman when working on legacy software. Are these systems really useless among today's software architectures? What do programmers have to prioritize when improving a legacy system? Keep on reading to find out!

What is Legacy Software and where to find it?

After 10 years of running and putting thousands of miles on the clock, a car is bound to have some issues. After all, every mechanical part has its limits when it comes to durability.

But does it mean it has to be scrapped?

Not at all!

All you need is an experienced mechanic with some time on their hand, to change the most vulnerable parts, like the timing belt or brake pads and the car can run perfectly fine for the next thousands of miles.

Software development is really quite similar in that regard. Legacy software is in many ways like a used car – it may have some problems and require a bit of refactoring, but generally it works just fine! All you need is a good “mechanic” to take care of it and fix all the most vulnerable parts.

Legacy software definition

On a more technical note, though, we can say that legacy software is a software architecture that is working in production but some of its parts don’t receive continuous updates or support from the manufacturer. We can differentiate three main types of legacy systems:

An older system with unsupported features, or incompatible with new drivers,
Software that’s non-compliant with recent standards in software development,
A software system that has problems with receiving security patches.

Stratoflow CTO, Arkadiusz Drysch, has rather jokingly defined legacy systems:

“Well, basically any system that has been deployed in production can be regarded as a legacy system, as it requires constant maintenance. There’s no such thing in software development as write-and-forget architecture”.

Of course, legacy software may still be in use due to the difficulty or cost of replacing it or simply just from pure convenience. However, legacy software can often cause problems due to its age and lack of support, which necessitates refactoring and redesigning parts of the system.

Why are legacy systems still used?

IT systems usually last for years, but in the meantime, technology evolves at a breakneck speed. That is why companies are often caught off guard when their old software architecture begins to lose support or updates, and it’s time for a more thorough maintenance job. Here are four reasons why most legacy systems are still in use after years of operation:

These systems still provide critical functions to businesses,
Companies lack resources for improving existing software architecture or changing it for newer systems,
The organization lacks the necessary IT skills and knowledge to migrate the legacy system or perform thorough refactorization,
Companies don’t have the technical specifications to create a new system with the same features as the legacy system.

Where can you find legacy systems?

Government organizations and public sector

Probably the most common place to find outdated software architecture is the public sector.

Recent research conducted by Dell revealed that approximately 70 percent of government organizations in the US, Germany, the UK, and Japan use outdated software in some capacity.

Furthermore, half of the public sector representatives surveyed said that their legacy operating systems have exceeded their end-of-life date. What’s even more surprising is that among federal governments worldwide, an ancient COBOL is the most popular programming language.

Curiously, in some public sector organizations, you can find hardware that is just as old as these programming languages and technologies.

Companies specializing in retrieving data from broken hardware have to store some key equipment, like hard drives, from as far back as 30 years ago. Why? Well, you never know when let’s say a nuclear power plant that is still running hardware from this age will be in need of a quick replacement.

Banks and corporate systems

Old computer systems and software can also be frequently found in banking sector companies.

According to the Financial Times reports, many well-established finance companies still use software architectures based on COBOL and currently suffer from the lack of developers with experience in this aged technology.

Why do these organizations use such an obsolete programming language? After all, shouldn’t the financial sector be all about high-performance computing?

These critical legacy systems are often responsible for core business processes at these organizations, usually involving large sums of money, and operating literally 24/7. Many managers see upgrading legacy software architectures as an unnecessary risk.

Retail companies

You will be surprised to learn that many retail, ecommerce, and manufacturing companies also use legacy systems. That’s odd since intuition tells us that being up-to-date with recent tech trends is an absolute necessity in today’s competitive market.

Where’s the catch, then?

This comes from the fact that to many ecommerce companies, profitability and sales figures are the top priority. A good chunk of these companies focuses solely on tools and solutions that will have an impact on their KPIs. Since their software architecture doesn’t have a direct impact on profitability, they constantly put it off.

Myths about Legacy software

There are many myths flowing around about legacy systems.

How real are they? Is there really any truth to the memes about legacy systems causing nothing but headaches?

Let’s now have a quick myth-busting session and take a look at the three most common things that people usually say about legacy software on the Internet.

1 Legacy software is unsupported

The IT market is definitely not uniform. In the case of legacy systems, that means that some of their components will become obsolete and unsupported faster than others.

In some situations, there will be little problem with contacting a support team or an account manager with some troubleshooting stuff. In others, vital sections of the system will lack the necessary updates to keep them compliant with the latest security standards.

So just like a car mechanic can have problems with parts’ availability for some vehicles, a software developer may struggle with outdated security measures and obsolete libraries in a legacy application.

Myth – Plausible.

2 Legacy software is useless

A 10-year-old car is still perfectly capable of transporting just as many people and cargo as it used to when it was brand new, even though it may now lack some new, trendy features.

Legacy systems are really similar in that regard. They may pose some risks (which we’ll dive into below), it doesn’t mean they completely outlived their usefulness. In many cases, a piece of legacy software is still in use because it is the most convenient option for ongoing business processes.

So in a nutshell, time doesn’t influence the system’s core functionality.

Myth – Busted.

3 Legacy software and legacy systems should be immediately replaced

Just like a used car, legacy software will work perfectly fine in the future as long as it is well-maintained.

Developers can modernize legacy systems by making sure which parts, tools, and functionalities lack support, or will lose it relatively soon, and update them gradually. Of course, the architecture won’t be as fancy and innovative, but it will work just fine.

Myth – Busted.

Why are legacy systems problematic? 3 most common problems

Of course, developers and product managers wouldn’t be talking about replacing or redesigning aging software architectures if they didn’t cause any problems. After all, in all horror stories about broken legacy code, there’s a grain of truth.

Here are three main issues caused by legacy systems in organizations.

1 Cost

Just like Arek said in the first part, all software systems will require maintenance. Having said that, redesigning and refactoring legacy applications usually is much more resource-consuming, both in terms of time and money.

What’s more, as software solutions become outdated, vendor support decreases. That means that companies may charge premiums to provide support for databases, tools, and libraries that are no longer part of their main product portfolio. In some circumstances, software modernization is a much harder task than building something from scratch, requiring specialized IT expertise from fields that hardly anyone uses anymore.

2 Data Security

A lot of libraries and database vendors are ditching the security updates for older releases of their products and tools after some years. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that legacy systems based upon them are more susceptible to security breaches and dangerous data loss.

In the case of smaller software applications, this should not be such a big deal, but for software architectures storing and managing the private data of hundreds of thousands of users, this is an extremely valid concern.

3 Shortage of knowledge and experience

As the years fly by, and the company sticks to the same software architecture, it might face a real problem with finding software experts familiar with outdated technologies.

Technical universities, and developers themselves, are adapting to the changing technological landscape. Very few people these days are familiar with languages like COBOL, Fortran, or Deplhi even though they were the backbone of corporate-grade software architectures twenty years ago.

Living legacy systems – 3 tips from our experience

So, we’ve already established that even if sometimes problematic, legacy software is still of great use to organizations, and in many cases, new systems are just not necessary. Let’s now point out three tips from our experts on how to avoid headaches when dealing with legacy software systems.

1 Keep track of the most important updates

Since in legacy systems, the biggest concern is the lack of support for certain components, developers should do a risk analysis for update availability in each part of the application.

A development team should ask themselves questions like: How long will these systems be able to operate on the current version? For how long critical components and libraries of the system will receive updates from the manufacturer?

After that, they can plan out their work by giving the riskiest parts of the whole system a top priority in the maintenance queue.

2 Don’t rewrite what you don’t have to

We’ve already established that legacy systems are still perfectly capable of completing the tasks they were designed to do. Having said that, it is always worth doing regular refactorings and looking for opportunities for possible enhancements.

The important thing to remember is that the refactoring process of legacy code should be complete.

Let’s say, a developer decided to refactor the part of the codebase responsible for database access, but completed only 90% of it. Doing so would eventually lead to a situation in which 9 out of 10 times you would connect to the database using the new and improved method but sometimes the old and slower version would kick in.

Such actions are greatly increasing the project’s complexity and hurting the user experience. So the general rule of thumb should be that if you want to improve the legacy system, you can not leave half-completed work.

3 Maintain good documentation, gather the necessary knowledge

A good practice for all developers regardless of the technology and programming language is to maintain proper documentation of the entire software development project.

When working with legacy systems, this practice is even more important and should be taken to heart by all developers dealing with outdated software architectures.

The main reason for that is when different members of the team come and go, you need to have clearly and thoroughly documented what is going on in the codebase. In a legacy system, it is expected that fewer developers are familiar with the technologies used in these systems. So in a situation when the last developer abandons the ship and leaves the project without proper documentation, it is basically doomed, and it has to be rewritten almost entirely from scratch.

Interestingly, Twitter may have had this very problem recently when Musk decided to fire a good portion of the development team who didn’t subscribe to his idea of “hardcore work ethic”. Regardless of your opinion on Twitter’s new CEO this situation really underscores the need for good documentation and a proper knowledge base in legacy systems.

Living with legacy system – summary

Maintaining legacy systems is considered to be a chore very few developers like.

After all, it usually involves going through sketchy documentation and dealing with solutions and programming languages that hardly anyone uses today.

Nevertheless, just like an old trusty car, it still serves a purpose, offering the same functionalities as when it was brand new. All it needs is some maintenance as it could serve customers for years to come. After all, we have to remember that more often than not fixing something is more cost-effective and convenient than throwing it away for something new.

How to Build Low Latency Java Applications

Arek Krysik — Tue, 07 Feb 2023 12:33:05 +0000

Communication delays can occur between integrated systems, resulting in latency. Therefore, it is good practice for applications running in a distributed environment to minimize the possible latency and stay prepared for temporary delays, rather than stopping the business process and negatively affecting the user experience. If you want to learn more about how to write low-latency code and what affects low latency in Java, then read our article.

Introduction to latency

Before we move on to analyzing latency in applications, it is helpful to know that each system software performs many operations that can be measured at any given time.

An example of an operation in a web application might be sending a search query to a search engine from a browser and displaying the results of that query.

In a trading system application dedicated to e-commerce, on the other hand, it could be the automation of sending information about the event of a user placing an order for a given product.

The less time these operations take, the more user-friendly they are.

These issues unquestionably come as no surprise to anyone. Today we are simply used to looking for information online, banking or entertainment applications that don’t make us wait for them.

The lack of delay in accessing searches was part of Google’s competitive advantage and what initially gave them the edge over other search engines.

The same is true for the e-commerce market, which has been snowballing in recent years. Fast online store engines are driving virtual commerce and are an element of competitive advantage for many companies.

This is why creating low latency applications is so important, and often determines be or not to be of a given business.

What is low latency in software applications?

The term latency usually refers to the speed of networked computer programs in the IT world.

If the topic of latency is brought up, it means in practice that an application does not respond in a sufficiently short time. So, we can say that latency determines how long it takes for a data packet to move from one designated point to another. Under optimal conditions, the latency should be as close to zero as possible.

However, this is not a simple task.

In the case of applications running in distributed systems, which are, for example, Internet applications, the cause of latency is often communication delay, i.e. the time required for a sent data packet to reach the other end of the communication channel and for the return response to get back to the sender.

Application users suffer the effects of latency in the form of long loading times for a web page, interrupted video streams or applications taking too long to launch.

All of this negatively affects UX and causes users to choose third-party solutions.

Equally important, each operation that applications perform has its latency. Because of this, many options for measuring latency (such as the number of operations per second or the number of seconds per operation) are used to analyze just a single operation run. For this reason, latency in applications is best determined in terms of centiles.

What does it mean?

Percentile, a.k.a. centile, is a measure indicating the value for which n percent of the collective is equal to or less than this value and 100-n more extraordinary.

So, for example, when we learn from the analysis that the 80th percentile of latency is 65 ms, it means that 80 out of 100 operations have a latency of at most 65 ms, and the rest, i.e. 100 – 80 = 20, operations suffer from a latency of at least 65 ms.

Let’s consider this as an example: imagine your app with 90th, 95th and 99th percentile latency of 1, 2 and 25 seconds, respectively. This means that if any subpage or functionality of your app has a million-page views per day, then, 10000 of those page views take longer than 25 seconds.

We probably don’t need to explain how this negatively affects the user experience and what steps users will take when an app or website performs so poorly.

If you want to know more data and numbers related to Java latency, read our stand-alone article about it.

What are the main sources of increased latency?

The causes of application delays depend on many factors. Unfortunately, there are many of them, and they are usually random in nature.

Among the most important ones should be pointed out:

Hardware interruptions,
Network or I/O delays,
Hypervisor interruptions,
Operating system activity (including rebuilding internal structures or flushing buffers),
Context switching,
Memory access,
Garbage collector,
CPU/Cache/Memory Architecture,
JVM functionality,
Network protocols,
Cache misses,
How the application is designed – concurrency, data structures and algorithms, caching.

How to decrease your app latency?

Google Vice President Marissa Mayer brought up the topic of latency back in 2006 at the Web 2.0 conference.

In a test conducted by the dawn giant, it turned out that an additional 500ms of latency reduced Google’s search traffic by as much as 20%.

Amazon specialists came to similar conclusions. In the A/B tests conducted, page speed was delayed by 100 milliseconds. It turned out that even such minor delays generated revenue drops.

So in her speech, Marissa Mayer firmly stated that “users really respond to speed”.

These events were groundbreaking, and since then, developers have constantly been racing to make their applications have as ultra-low latency as possible.

How to achieve this? What are the best practices in low-latency system software development? Here are the most critical elements to keep in mind when designing low-latency systems.

1. Choose the correct programming language

When choosing a programming language to create a service or application, it is worth knowing that there are two main groups – scripted and compiled.

Scripted programs are text files that you run with an additional program. When run, the code is interpreted into a version the computer understands and executes.

Although we can see the effects of changes relatively quickly with this group of programming languages, in most cases, applications written in scripting languages have lower performance and more significant latency.

If you choose compiled languages, such as Java, this problem disappears.

In the case of Java, programs are run by the Java virtual machine – simply put, a compiler tool translates Java code into virtual machine code understandable by the JVM. Follow-up reading: Java Best Practices That Every Java Developer Should Know.

Therefore, no matter what JVM programming language we use, our code will always be translated into virtual machine code, called bytecode. Only the JVM itself further translates this code into a form our computer’s operating system hardware understands.

As a result, low latency code in Java is compiled once before the program is run, making it run faster and without significant delays.

2. Remember about memory and garbage collection

Input/output operations are a common cause of latency, so you must ensure all necessary data is stored in memory.

In practice, this means managing your own in-memory data structures and maintaining a persistent log, but it positively reduces latency.

These issues are also crucial in the context of garbage collection, which in Java handles memory management. While this is useful, memory management cannot be 100% forgotten. This is because there are problems with memory leaks, which negatively affect both performance and application latency.

3. Provide a system buffer

To avoid latency, constantly provide and maintain resources for processing application requests.

Operating at the limits of hardware or software capacity in a situation of increased processing demands can result in bottlenecks and thus negatively affect the user experience.

4. Context switching

Changing the process being executed involves the complicated operations of saving the previous process’s computational state and recreating the new process’s computational state.

This represents a significant overhead on the operation of the system or application since, during this time, the system does not perform valuable anything but only “administrative activities.”

So, process scheduling should not change the process being executed too often because most of the working time will be spent on constant context switching. In practice, this means you do more computational work than you have resources for, generating latency.

5. Take care of sequential reads

Each form of storage performs far better when used sequentially.

This is because sequential reads to a memory trigger the use of prefetching at the RAM level, as well as at the CPU cache level. By performing these actions correctly, every next packet of data that the application needs at any given time is available at hand in the cache, reducing latency.

6. Pay attention to caching

When analyzing Java app latency problems, it is also essential to always remember about caching.

The speed and performance of a Java application largely depend on the type of tasks it has to perform and what they involve. Although caching is primarily related to Java application performance, it also reduces the load on the system, consequently reducing latency.

Therefore, speeding up processes by caching data minimizes the burden on limited resources and positively affects application speed.

How to decrease your Java app latency?

Nowadays, a lot is required from consumer, business, or entertainment applications. For this reason, developers are constantly racing to write low-latency systems that achieve response times in microseconds.

1. Keep your application simple

If you aim to minimize application latency, try to keep the Java code and system as simple as possible. The fewer tasks an application has to perform, the less time it takes to complete them, reducing latency.

How to accomplish this?

First, remember at all times what kind of functions the necessary code in your application is supposed to perform. The KISS rule, or Keep It Simple, Stupid, is helpful for this. The KISS practice originated in the 1960s among US military engineers.

Over time, it has also found its way into development approaches, as it thoroughly defines the essence of the products being developed – striving to maintain a clear structure without adding unnecessary elements.

2. Remember about garbage collection

As a rule, memory has a limited size and cannot be expanded indefinitely. Its insufficient resources affect the latency.

Java programmers are helped by the garbage collector, which independently removes no longer used objects from JVM memory. Knowing how the GC algorithms work is crucial to tuning the software system. So, if you suspect that latency problems in your application lie on the memory side, it’s a good idea to verify the garbage collection log immediately.

3. Analyze all processes, not just Java

Low latency in Java is not solely due to the capabilities of this programming language.

To be able to implement ultra low latency-reducing entitlements, you need to understand the entire process on which your code executes thoroughly.

What should be taken into account?

First, the operating system and the choice of hardware with the proper parameters are essential. To reduce latency in Java, you also need to ensure that the system software and device drivers are correctly aligned. You should also check lock free algorithms and processing time.

4. Take care of memory and I/O operations

To reduce Java latency, prepare your application so that all necessary data is stored in memory or cache.

Also, constantly monitor I/O operations so that if anything goes wrong, you can react right away.

5. Rely on specialists

Finally, one more piece of advice – for Java latency optimization work, engage someone with experience.

At Stratoflow, we develop high-performance Java apps and provide our clients with the help of expierienced in building low-latency software systems. This enables us to reduce the development time of applications that respond to market needs and support business processes.

An example is the travel search engine we created, which handles up to 300 million daily queries, where 95% of them reach users in less than one second.

How do I make my Java application run faster?

Java applications are expected to run fast and provide the functionalities they are supposed to provide.

This is important for both system developers and users. To make a Java app run fast, you need to pay attention to:

Eliminating any slow database queries, which occur most often as the application load increases;
Speeding up processes using cached data, which definitely reduces the load on limited resources;
Garbage collection operation and memory leaks;
The quality and accuracy of design guidelines;
Code quality and proper object allocation.

Combining all of the above-mentioned “puzzle” elements increases the likelihood of creating an efficient Java app that runs without latency.

How do I create a low-latency application in Java?

Google constantly notes inquiries about how to write a low-latency application in Java.

It’s hardly surprising since a lot depends on the speed of the system’s performance – first of all, the application’s business usability and positive user experience.

For this reason, Java programmers are in demand constantly in the labor market, and their knowledge of low-latency programming is invaluable.

Among the pro tips pointed out by experienced Java developers on low-latency programming are such as:

Choose the best and well-suited programming language for the project you are working on;
Keep all necessary data in memory to avoid I/O problems;
Take care of adequate system buffer and cache so that all operations are performed smoothly and without delay;
Systematically check garbage collector logs and data structures;
Create and plan a tuning strategy (use tuning systems software only when you
Always keep in mind the business purpose of application development;
Rely on experienced Java developers who know where to look for latency causes.

How to build ultra-low latency systems in Java – closing thoughts

The speed and efficiency of the application realistically translate into business benefits. It is worth knowing that some applications, such as those dedicated to high-frequency trading companies or created for financial sectors, require efficient and smooth handling of even millions of transactions per second.

Minimizing the latency of even a single transaction is really of great importance. So before you start developing an application, define your business goals and carefully verify the software house. Remember that only high-performance applications written in Java will allow you to succeed in business!

However, if you care about the simple and fast development process, get familiar with no-code and low-code development and build apps without coding.

How to Be a Good Developer: 20 Practical Tips From Our Senior Programmers

Arek Krysik — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 09:28:21 +0000

Although many aspire to become good developers, in practice, it turns out that not everyone can make it. As in other professions, in programming, success has to be fought for, and it is constantly essential to remember that it is the product of hard work, talent, and a specific set of qualities and skills. So what can you do to become a good developer? Here’s a list of ready-made hints and tips from professionals experienced in the developer profession.

What makes a good developer?

Programming is a kind of communication with a computer, which can happen through various languages and methods.

Computer science is changing at a breakneck pace. New trends and guidelines are emerging, determined not only by the development of new technologies but also by the needs of end users. Therefore, to become a good developer, you first need to have an aptitude for it and a strong desire for self-development.

The industry has undergone a significant change over the past few years.

Today, a developer is no longer associated by practically anyone with an introverted worker in a flannel shirt, sitting incessantly at a computer. Nowadays, the developer’s profession is perceived as specialized, requiring expertise, lifelong learning, and chances for high earnings.

Developers, therefore, emphasize their development, teamwork and skillful reading of business needs. Only in this way are they able to write helpful code and create a product that meets the expectations of the customer and target users.

Now let’s take a closer look at the tips we prepared along with very experienced developers from Stratoflow. These will help answer the question of what makes a great developer.

1. Write code regularly

Let’s not be afraid to clarify that practising coding is more important than education.

Of course, the aspect of self-development can’t be overlooked, but without using the skills gained in practice, it’s hard to verify the abilities possessed. To become a great developer, it is not enough to be interested in computers, technically advanced, or have a scientific mind. Even in high school, it is essential not to neglect science subjects such as mathematics or physics, which expand and train the mind. In college, on the other hand, acquiring theory alone is not enough either.

The best way to learn computer science is by trial and error, verifying piece by piece the written code for compliance with the assumptions.

If you manage to write code that solves a specific problem, you are one step closer to becoming a good developer! However, the more practice you get, the better guiding what specialization in programming you want to choose.

This way, you can expand your specific skills in a programming career by attending courses and boot camps, industry events, following best practices and reading books.

2. Try to get something out of every project, even the most boring ones!

In a conversation we had with our Senior Java Developer as part of our StratoStory series, Michael compared programming to construction.

“With programming, it’s a bit like a building – you seemingly use the same tools and skills for each project, but you build different objects. Once, you work on building a summer house, once a railroad bridge, and another time a shopping mall or a skyscraper. Each one of them is entirely different and unique”.

In programming, it is the same. Each project can be other in the field of business, the specific choice of technology and the requirements of the target customer.

Michał adds:

“All this makes it possible to feel a breath of fresh air and arouse curiosity even after fifteen years of work. So, yes, there are times when someone as a developer in a corporation can work on one product for as long as ten years and, by all means, have the right to get bored with it. But it depends on the person – many don’t mind the routine”.

However, it’s worth changing projects or employers to get a fresh perspective on writing code. In this way, you can gain absolute satisfaction from programming, from gaining new obscurity and from being able to solve problems.

3. Don’t get too attached to one technology, let alone a programming language

It is effortless to come across various discussions and arguments on the Internet about the superiority of programming language A over B and vice versa. However, in practice, any project can be spoiled with the best programming language or technology.

“More important is how we use it in a given project so that the daily work is not frustrating and the final written code is functional” – recommends Michał.

4. Be open to innovation and dialogue even with senior software developers

Are you proposing an innovation or improvement in the project, and do you hear the critical voices of the old-timers?

Michał Głomba, CEO at Stratoflow suggests:

“Don’t get caught up in the “experienced old vs innovative young” conflict”.

Yes, senior developers have already used many keyboards on other projects, got burned many times, and may show fierce resistance. Often they do so justifiably, so listening to their arguments at the beginning of your career path.

However, sooner or later, there will be a field where they will (or should) give way to the arguments of younger developers because no one can keep up with all the news and always be up-to-date.

5. Learn from your colleagues and mentors

“In the case of complex projects, the ability to work in a team and share knowledge is key”
– underlines CTO of Stratoflow Arkadiusz in an interview about working environment in our company.

In fact, few projects are small enough and require a limited number of skills to be implemented by a single person. Therefore, learning to work in a team is also one way that can help break through the stereotypical perception of the loner developer in the IT world.

Teamwork is the foundation of a developer’s success, whether virtual or in the office. Moreover, good developers have strong communication skills, which are crucial in project discussions with other developers. It also comes in handy when communicating with clients and developing functional solutions for them.

Group work is also an excellent opportunity to brainstorm and exchange experiences. During group conceptual work, the best programming solutions are often created.

6. Test your skills in open source projects

Open source projects are those whose source code is publicly available. As a rule, several people work on them, maintaining and developing the project.

Google, Facebook, and other technology companies noticed the benefits of using open-source solutions a long time ago and are also more willing to share their output, making the source code public and helping to develop existing solutions. As a rule, working on an open-source project does not involve earning money, at least not in material terms.

It’s more about gaining experience working in a remote team or discovering new processes and software project management systems.

It’s also a chance to learn something from others and receive constructive feedback on your work. Furthermore, it’s worth seeing different approaches to writing code and verifying other perspectives and requirements.

Tomasz, who used to contribute to open-source projects, says:

“Of course, it’s great when you can devote your time to it at work, but even if not, you can try your hand at home once in a while, instead of the next episode of the series on Netflix”.

7. Read code and do code reviews

Code verification is valuable time.

Keep in mind that the result of the code is the individual functionalities that the testers will finally verify. However, the code itself also needs to be tested. Such verification is the best way to improve the quality and readability of the code.

Checking the code by the developer makes it possible to ensure that no aspect of good programming has been overlooked, the software will run efficiently, and without latency, and this can happen even to the best.

Another developer on the team can also do code verification.

After all, reviewing the work of others by team members allows you to expand your knowledge, and adding people with less experience and expertise to the code review is one way to learn the details of a project and bring new people into the team.

8. Write clean code

Probably every great programmer has encountered messy code, wasting a lot of time understanding and adequately interpreting incomprehensible variable names, complicated program structure, and hidden method behavior.

Such a mess slows down work, breeds frustration, and creates some fear of making any changes.

All this also significantly increases the cost of software production.

That’s why learning how to write clean code from the beginning of your programming adventure is crucial.

Clean code demonstrates a developer’s knowledge and competence and is also the best way to succeed, meet deadlines, and create quality software.

Piotr, Java Developer, suggests one more thing:

“I recommend writing a self-documenting code. This is because such code is easier to understand and more pleasant to read. Colleagues have a lighter job on code review. Also, in the future, if I need to get back to the task and remember nothing of it, such code is priceless, because it helps to embrace it faster”.

At Stratoflow, our software engineers always pay a big attention to clean code. In fact, even our client pointed this out by giving us feedback:

“This large codebase is in excellent shape and has very good metrics. This codebase has excellent complexity metrics, which is a positive sign for long-term maintainability. The code scan is one of the cleanest we have seen“.

In addition, every programmer should know a few numbers critical in building high-performance systems, regardless of the chosen technology or programming language.

9. Develop your good communication skills

As a good programmer, you must remember that efficient and transparent communication results in projects being completed on time and according to specifications.

Although sometimes it seems that the technical error made is due to the developer’s ignorance, in practice, it often turns out that the cause lies in poor communication.

For this reason, learn to communicate with your team and clients. The better you know the project, the client’s requirements, and your role, the more likely you will write helpful code.

10. Learn best practices from other developers

Information technology is rapidly changing and constantly evolving.

This requires programmers to adapt to changes, which requires systematic learning and acquiring new competencies. In this profession, as in the work of a doctor, you are a lifelong learner.

It is also essential to be open to new things.

In addition to just focusing on programming, expanding knowledge of related topics is worthwhile.

For example, Blockchain technology is becoming increasingly popular among developers. This allows not only to increase the range of possibilities but also, over time, better evaluate the position and usefulness of all these innovations.

Often even from a secondary, tedious project, there is something you can learn. You can constantly improve something and, as a result, show your good side to other developers and co-workers. Learning from each other inside the development team is also essential to continuous professional development.

11. Learn how to estimate your time

With the job as a developer comes the need for estimation skills.

As a rule, this applies to the work time on a given project and individual tasks. This is because orders are priced on this basis.

So if your boss comes and asks: “How much time do you need to write code for an application that handles reservations for hotels?” you need to be prepared. Will you be able to answer him specifically to this question right away? No. After all, you need to know the business requirements, the team’s composition or the detailed functionalities to be implemented.

By dividing the whole process into small elements, you can estimate how many hours you will spend implementing the tasks assigned.

The profitability of the entire project depends on how well you count the time. If you underestimate, there is a risk that you will miss the deadline. If you overestimate, the project may be too expensive for the client.

For this reason, it is worth developing competence in estimating the time to become a good software programmer.

12. Be a good team player

Teamwork is the work of a group of people (employees) who perform activities and tasks arising from job processes.

It requires joint efforts, cooperation, helping each other, and various functions. What’s more, people working in a team usually bear collective responsibility for the results of their work.

Although it seems that a developer can work independently, this is a very misleading view. It takes consultation with other developers, project owners, and clients to write quality code.

The ability to work in a team is therefore very beneficial – it increases efficiency and commitment and creates a better working environment and atmosphere.

13. Share your knowledge

Indeed it happens to you to look for answers to some questions about programming on the Internet, in forums, or in books.

You also ask others about issues you are interested in.

When you can’t find what you’re looking for, you get frustrated – can’t anyone share their knowledge? However, when you are the one who is asked to speak up, to share your competence, you have a dilemma – will sharing knowledge benefit you? It certainly does!

As a developer, you can, for example, maintain your blog or create articles for your company’s blog, just like Stratoflow’s developers do. This way, you will present yourself as an expert in a particular field.

Sharing knowledge is also very important in the context of teamwork. Exchanging experiences helps to complete projects and create team spirit, which is invaluable in day-to-day work.

14. Try new approaches and techniques

Having a wide variety of experiences is helpful in a developer’s job and improves programming skills.

So it’s worth testing different programming techniques and languages. This way, you verify not only yourself and your aptitude but also expand your competence.

Your value as an employee also increases. The IT industry, although constantly growing, is also very competitive. If you learn a few programming languages, you have a chance to participate in many exciting projects, which will undoubtedly add to your budget.

15. Ask questions

He who asks doesn’t wander – also a software developer.

The ability to ask the right questions is the secret that leads us to important answers.

“Authentic dialogue and listening skills are characterized by a highly developed competence to analyze, draw conclusions and communicate based on constructive questions. And this is very important in the work of a software developer”
– Michał.

When you were young, questions would pop up in your head by themselves, and without a moment’s thought, you would utter them. Why? Because you wanted to know as much as possible and get an answer immediately. Over the years, this skill, unfortunately, tends to be neglected. However, it is worth cultivating and developing it.

Skillful questioning is the key to gaining valuable information that will help you in your daily work – writing code, testing, and introducing new functionalities into your software.

16. Try to understand the issue you encountered

Issues of business and private importance are purely a challenge and an opportunity for development. They are also opportunities to rise higher, gaining new knowledge and experience.

Remember that when you call something an opportunity, you subconsciously want to take advantage of it. So treat every problem you encounter as a challenge. This is a valuable and helpful trait in a developer’s work.

17. Learn from your mistakes to improve your programming skills

A new task and a new problem are ideal opportunities to think about possible alternative solutions.

You can do some reading and ask Google because, most likely, someone has already solved a similar problem before.

You can also discuss specific issues with more experienced developers on the team. This way, you can deeply understand the topic you are working on and finally write good code.

Although in practice, there is not always time for extended analysis and research, this approach is worth implementing in your daily work. Learn to solve problems to draw conclusions from each one and gain valuable knowledge that you will use in future projects.

Don’t give up – test different possibilities, consult with others, review other people’s code, and look for ways to cope. This is a valuable experience that will help you in your work as a developer, as well as in everyday life.

18. Be the “some new blood” in software development

Do you know why so-called “some new blood” is highly valued in projects?

Often, very well laid out and structured projects have it that they are not improved and updated. Everything is kept at the same level, but nothing more. Sometimes projects are not even run at an acceptable level, and the teams don’t mind.

Following the principle of “If it works, don’t move it”, many applications do not keep up with trends.

Versions of libraries, methodologies, architecture, and ways of solving problems stay the same from the beginning to the end of the software’s life because it’s simply more convenient.

If you’re looking for a recipe for becoming a good programmer, then – whether you’re a new team member or not – be that “some new blood” who is always looking for better and more unique solutions.

19. Learn to anticipate

You will encounter many problems in your day-to-day work as a developer – poor UI/UX, display problems on different devices, faulty connections between systems, etc. Your job as a developer is not only to solve problems but also to avoid them whenever possible.

So before you start coding, consider where the potential difficulties might arise. Eliminating bottlenecks at the beginning will make you write good working code faster, and software performance will be great. But, of course, this requires knowledge and experience. Don’t worry – you will develop the ability to anticipate with time.

20. Never lose the joy of programming

In a developer’s work, there are always more difficult moments and times of doubt. But if you derive pleasure from turning your ideas into working programs, then try to cherish this state.

If you feel that a moment of professional crisis is approaching – take a break. If it’s temporary, do what relaxes you – read a book, play on a PlayStation, go for a run. If you need a more extended break – plan a vacation.

When your head rests, even the most challenging programming tasks become painless, and writing good code becomes as easy as a piece of cake.

Be a good software developer – closing thoughts

Remember that great programmers have worked for many years to become who they are. Therefore, start writing code systematically, streamline your daily job, learn new things, and develop your competence by taking training courses and sharing your knowledge with your team. This way, you will also become a good developer and create helpful custom software – especially as the demand for Java developers and those specializing in other languages continue to grow

Is Low-Code/No-Code the Future? 5 Most Important Trends

Arek Krysik — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 09:43:47 +0000

Will developers always be needed? Are low-code and no-code platforms going to replace traditional programming? Is low-code/no-code really the future? In this article, we will reflect on why the popularity of these tools is growing and what the most important trends are.

Urgent need of digital transformation

The experiences of recent years, especially those related to the pandemic, show that the need for new technological solutions is growing among organizations in various industries. In other words, digital transformation has become crucial. And its main objective is to enable building apps or websites to non-technical people in a short period of time.

Many would ask: why is it so expensive to incorporate modern, digital solutions? Is there any more accessible alternative to custom software development?

Here’s the answer: no-code and low-code development.

This approach to application development allows people with no or little technical expertise (so-called citizen developers) to create customized solutions using dedicated platforms.

Low-code and no-code tools seem to be the right choice for small and medium organizations outside IT. It applies especially to users whose aim is to meet their business goals fast, efficiently, and at a low cost using modern technology.

According to Gartner, in 2021 41% of non-IT employees were involved in customizing and building apps. In the same report, it is predicted that by the end of 2025, half of all new low-code clients will come from outside IT. This means that the demand for digital solutions is constantly growing and, consequently, it is getting easier to access them thanks to no-code and low-code development platforms.

“While low-code application development is not new, a confluence of digital disruptions, hyper-automation and the rise of composable business has led to an influx of tools and rising demand,” Fabrizio Biscotti, research vice president at Gartner.

So we know that there is a great demand in the market for this type of tool. But the question is: are no-code/low-code tools as perfect as they seem to be? What’s the catch?

What is no-code and low-code development

Low-code platforms is a software development approach that enables business users with no-coding knowledge to build apps using drag-and-drop options instead of writing code. Thanks to this solution, an application development process is less expensive and time-consuming.

However, low-code and no-code platforms put some limits when it comes to the development of more advanced features.

As we have already mentioned in our introductory post about low-code and no-code development, the customizations of applications may be unachievable in some scenarios. Even though low-code enables professional developers to modify the code to some extent, changes are more difficult and complex than in the traditional software development.

When and why is a low-code or no-code used? In small businesses, mostly to build simple and non-risky applications related to visual analytics, and workflow automation as well as to develop web and mobile sites.

The graph below shows the most popular reasons for using such tools.

It is worth emphasizing that for large organizations, which need advanced and custom software applications, low-code and no-code may not be sufficient due to their limits.

What is the impact of this technology on the IT industry? Will low-code/no-code replace programmers? What is the future of application development? These questions cannot be answered unequivocally, but it is worth looking into the current trends that shape the tech industry and getting a bigger picture.

5 most important no-code/low-code trends that are changing IT industry

How is low-code/no-code changing the industry? What is its future? To answer this question, let’s take a look at current trends related to low-code and no-code development and its influence on the software development industry.

1. Low entry threshold for application development

Low-code and no-code platforms are changing app and software development by making a very low entry barrier for people who don’t have a programming background. An intuitive interface with drag-and-drop features helps users create custom solutions for their business needs.

Apparently, it seems that easy access to app development also positively affects job satisfaction and tech skills.

As Microsoft study shows, 82% of low-code/no-code users agree that the technology helps give software users the chance to advance their technical expertise and knowledge of software development.

Additionally, it has been demonstrated that the usage of no-code or low-code platforms or apps has had an 83% good influence on users’ job satisfaction and workload, as well as an 80% positive impact on users’ morale.

2. Democratization of Programming

Nowadays, apps are becoming indispensable not only at work and in business, but also in everyday life – at the bank, while traveling, shopping or at the gym. These more complex and advanced applications are developed by professional programmers with a large amount of capital.

However, simpler applications, such as those for workflow management or data analysis, can be created by non-developers thanks to an improved user experience.

This new approach is called democratization of technology.

IT democratization makes organizations perform better because more people outside IT have access to technical knowledge.

According to Accenture, 87% of utility executives believe technology democratization is becoming critical in their ability to ignite innovation across their organization.

Thanks to low-code and no-code platforms, more and more people without programming backgrounds are closer to technology and don’t need to spend years learning how to code to create a customized application.

Instead, as data from Low-Code Application Development Trends survey shows, 70% of their users learned low-code in 1 month or less and 73% of users were developing apps within 3 months or less.

3. Cost and speed of development

The main reason many business users choose low-code tools is simple: time and money.

Nowadays, platforms for low-code development are part of a crucial strategy to help with the rapid application development and quick deployment. Software development with no-code and low-code tools takes much less time compared to traditional development.

What is more, low-code platforms accelerate business processes by making it easier to exchange information within one company, as well as standardize a software development process across business and IT teams.

4. Hyperautomation

Low-code is widely used in the automation of business processes.

In order to increase productivity, optimize costs and improve workflow, enterprises use technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA), artificial intelligence (AI), and low-code application platforms (LCAP). The latter allows employees to create personalized applications that facilitate, collect, manage, and exchange data across organizations.

This modern, business-driven approach to rapidly automated processes is called hyper-automation. Incorporating it into your business enables scalability, and remote operation and prevents disruption to your business model.

One of the top factors driving the adoption of low-code through 2022 will be the demands of business-driven hyper-automation.

It’s worth adding that, according to Gartner‘s insights, hyper-automation is one of the 12 top strategic technology trends for 2022.

5. Software as a Service

Nowadays, low-code software development is becoming an important SaaS trend. Thanks to its low entry barrier, anyone who doesn’t have coding skills is able to enter the SaaS market with products built with a low-code platform.

On the other hand, the main Software as a Service providers offer capabilities that include low-code development tools for their users.

Growing importance of low-code development market
To answer the question if low-code/no-code is the future, we will look at real numbers.

The low-code market was valued at almost 12 500 million U.S. dollars in 2020, and is forecast to reach approximately 191 million U.S. dollars in 2030. The market is projected to grow with a CAGR of 31.3 percent over this period, according to Low-Code Development Platform Market Research Report.

More and more companies are using low-code technology outside of IT departments. It is predicted that by 2025, low-code or no-code technologies will be used in 70% of new applications developed by organizations.

The remote working regulations, movement restrictions, and general lockdowns that were implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the rise of the popularity of low-code.

Will no-code and low-code platforms replace traditional software development?

Creating a solution that would replace expensive programmers has been a golden grail of IT for a long time. Low-code is one such attempt. But is it efficient?

Arkadiusz Drysch, CTO at Stratoflow, shares his thoughts on this subject:

“I believe that we are at a stage where we have disenchanted the myth that someone who does not program can create any application. The naive approach is that you can make such a solution that anyone can operate. There will always be nuances. If we want to reduce the complexity of an application, we have to expect that it will be at the expense of its quality”.

So will no-code replace code? To answer this question, we have to analyze to what extent no-code/low-code can be an advanced tool.

Over time, as the application becomes more advanced, there is a demand for an appropriate level of technical background. This means that time is needed to educate and familiarize oneself with the no-code software. As a result, demand for low-code specialists emerges.

To illustrate an application's complexification process, the SQL language can be recalled as an example. It was intended to be an accessible solution for everyone to facilitate database management. However, over time, it became a separate programming language. A regular user is unable to comprehend or write complex SQL queries. They have to learn SQL in order to understand the structure of the database.

We predict that the same thing happens with low-code applications. The more complex the application, the more resources are needed to know how to operate it.

As Jasper Hans points out in his article:

“low-code/no-code platform will be impossible to accomplish “Product Standardization” if it is positioned in data and internal systems. It will be impossible to rely only on low-code/no-code products if they are focused on tackling information non-circulation and inefficiency inside the organization. To overcome this challenge, you’ll need personnel development and customer participation.”

In conclusion, low-code will work well in the future for a variety of simple business apps, but not for advanced, custom apps. Traditional programming is then required.

Is low-code/no-code the future? Summary

Nowadays to create simple applications we use low-code and no-code development platforms. The trend is significant in the market. However, it is worth noting that most applications reach such a stage of development at some point that customization IT departments or outsourcing software development always will be needed. The future of low-code is promising for simple business applications, but it is important to remember that there will always be a need for a specialist who can create more complex systems.

Why Is Performance Testing Important? All You Need to Know

Arek Krysik — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 15:32:54 +0000

One of the things we look into when searching for a new car is its performance. How much horsepower does it have? How much torque does the powertrain produce?

These stats are crucial to know as they directly translate into the value of the vehicle. But there’s one more place when performance really matters – software development.

Why should developers care about application performance? How can it impact the KPIs of a business? All of that and more in today’s post on our blog. Keep reading!

What is performance testing?

Performance testing is a type of software testing technique, which helps in determining how stable, scalable, and responsive a given piece of software is under a specific load. It helps developers to locate and eliminate performance bottlenecks and issues.

A key thing to understand is that for different types of applications, performance might mean different things.

For services accommodating the needs of ordinary users, a key thing is how quickly they can respond to inputs and how many simultaneous users they can handle. This is also probably the first thing that comes into mind when we think about software performance.

Enterprise-grade software systems used for internal company processing often deal with batch data that can amass tens of gigabytes. In this case, a much more important performance metric is how quickly the software can transfer and process each batch of data.

A key takeaway from this is that performance testing is not uniform. Performance tests should first and foremost focus on one of the two key things: latency or throughput, depending on what type of applications we are dealing with. Let’s now take a closer look at both of these terms.

Latency vs. Throughput

Let’s say that we have a shipping enterprise owner who wants his company to be more efficient.

There are two ways he can do it: he can invest in faster trucks or make them carry more cargo at once.

This, in a nutshell, is how latency and throughput work.

Latency is like the speed of a truck. It is the time it takes for the data packets to arrive at the end user. Throughput on the other hand is represented in this example by the cargo capacity of each vehicle. It is the number of data packets being successfully sent per second, and latency is the actual time those packets are taking to get there.

Both terms are related as they both refer to data transfer and speed. You can say that they are two sides of the same coin, even though they are different metrics. Performance tests and optimizations aim to maximize throughput and minimize latency.

Performance testing vs. QA testing

Let’s also briefly touch on the differences between QA and performance tests, as these can be often confused by less technical people.

Quality assurance testing, or QA for short, is a process of ensuring that developed software fits all the initially set product requirements. QA testing includes many standards and procedures aimed at making sure that software meets certain specifications before it’s released to the public.

If we go back to our shipping company analogy, QA testing would mean making sure that each cargo payload arrived at the destination intact, just as the company had promised.

Alright, but which is more important, QA testing or performance testing?

Neither, as every software development project needs both.

QA tests are intended to show that software does what it is supposed to do. Performance tests, on the other hand, show that an application is performing as it should – that means they test non-functional product requirements.

Both categories are designed to fulfill their own unique roles, and neither can be neglected.

What are the types of performance tests?

We can differentiate many different types of performance tests, but generally, they go into two main categories:

Tests that simulate web traffic – This type is pretty much self-explanatory. They, in a performance testing environment, simulate virtual users to check how well the system performs under load. These include stress, load, endurance and spike tests.
Tests that simulate data processing capabilities – This performance testing measure aims to test how the system handles the constant influx of new data batches. These include soak and scalability tests.

Let’s now go a little bit more in detail about each of these subtypes as these are the main performance indicators for most business scenarios:

Load tests

Load testing simulates the number of virtual users that might use an application. In reproducing realistic usage and load conditions, based on response times, this test can help identify potential bottlenecks.

Stress tests

Stress testing checks how well the system performs during the peak activity. These types of tests significantly and continuously increase the number of concurrent users to test the limits of the system.

Spike Tests

During spike tests, an application receives an extreme increase or decrease in load. Their main goal is to test how well the software handles sudden changes in load and whether it influences user experience.

Soak tests

Soak tests gradually increase the number of virtual users and check how well the system handles load over a more extended period. The main objective of these tests is to check if sustained high user activity over longer time periods negatively influences performance levels.

Endurance testing

Endurance testing is yet another type of performance test that is performed to observe whether an application can handle the expected load it is designed to endure for a long period of time. During endurance testing, memory utilization is the main factor influencing the application’s performance.

Scalability testing

A key thing to know for CTOs is whether their system is capable of scaling out horizontally.

Let’s say that we have a system capable of processing a set batch of data in 100 seconds. Our intuition tells us that doubling its hardware capabilities should enable it to process twice as much data in the same time period.

This logic cannot be applied universally to all software systems.

Scalability tests are designed to test just that – the ability of the system to process more data the more hardware resources are dedicated to it.

Why do you need performance testing?

Senior developer from Stratoflow, Wojtek, has put it that way:

“It is important for the sake of family life. If you don’t test your code, something is bound to cause performance issues sooner or later. And in that situation, you will be forced to sacrifice your free time to solve dumpster fires on the production”.

On a more serious note, though, software performance has a profound influence on businesses regardless of their types.

We can go back to our two main types of application performance. For B2C applications, poor performance translates to subpar user experience. That, in turn, leads to frustrated customers and lost revenues.

This is true, especially for businesses like online stores, where users interact with multiple content-rich subpages. According to the latest data, a seemingly unnoticeable 100ms decrease in page load speed can lead to a 1.11% increase in session-based conversion. In the case of large e-commerce companies, this translates to hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional revenue.

B2B clients are less sensitive to load speeds. After all, you won’t see an employee leave his job because a company’s internal system loads half a second too long.

For them, it is much more important to transfer and process large batches of data in a reasonable time. In the case of some large corporate-grade internal software architectures, the difference between optimized and unoptimized systems can be measured in hours of data processing times.

One thing is for sure – performance issues can significantly hinder a company’s KPIs, regardless of the type of business it runs.

What to remember when doing performance testing – 7 tips from the expert

So what to look out for when designing and setting up performance testing for your application? Here are 7 tips from senior software developers:

Cover your code with tests right from the beginning

If you know that one of the main objectives of the system that you are designing is outstanding performance, testing should be done from the very initial stages of the development process.

This approach will minimize the risk of doing large architecture rebuilding in the future when performance issues become more apparent.

Realistically simulate what’s happening to the system in the production environment

In order for performance tests to yield tangible results, it is important to run them on data sets and hardware as close to their production counterparts as possible.

Especially in the case of enterprise systems, it is sometimes hard to obtain information about the expected “shape and size” of the data that the system will have to deal with in production. These criteria have to be established beforehand with the client in order to properly set up the testing environment.

Automate as much as you can

Time is arguably the most valuable resource in software development.

By leveraging automated performance testing, you can test virtually all aspects of your code faster. Nevertheless, some human intervention in the performance engineering process is still necessary, especially when setting up sophisticated testing tools on assembled applications.

Make sure you are simulating a sufficiently long time period

If your service is based on serving your users with content (like an e-commerce site or hotel booking service) you will probably be fine with simulating only a single day of the system’s performance.

When dealing with systems that process batch data, their performance can be vastly different after uploading hundreds of gigabytes of data. It is thus crucial to simulate multiple days from the life of the system in order to properly test its performance over time and how well it can “soak” subsequent data batches.

Isolate your tests

If you had heard something about multitenant software architecture, you should not be a stranger to a concept of a noisy neighbor problem.

A similar thing can happen when conducting performance tests. Performance testing capabilities can be negatively affected if the tests are run on the same hardware with other processes in the background.

Don’t focus much on microbenchmarks

When performance testing and optimizing your code, you should always use the top-down analysis method.

What do we mean by that?

You should always focus first on these parts of the code that have the biggest influence on the overall code performance.

Let’s imagine that out of the big process that takes 2 hours to complete, you are working on its smaller part that finishes in roughly 2 seconds. Even if you manage to speed it up a thousand-fold, it won’t make such a big difference in the grand scheme of things. It’s much wiser to test and optimize these parts of the code that take the longest time to complete rather than focus on microbenchmarks.

Don’t get caught in the hyper-optimization trap

Optimization of your code is important, but probably an even more important question is when to stop.

Developers often find themselves in a situation where they spend days working on a piece of code that will improve the overall latency and throughput by only a fraction of a percent. In most cases, this is a futile effort.

Before diving even deeper into fine-tuning of your code, you should make a quick cost-benefit analysis.

How much time will I need to optimize this section of the code? What benefits in terms of time savings will it bring? Always look for the golden means. Maybe your code is optimized enough, and you’d be better off devoting your time and effort elsewhere.

Why do you need performance testing – summary

Moore’s law might be dead, but the pace of development in the IT industry doesn’t slow down. End-users expect their web applications to load almost instantaneously, and many large enterprises have to transfer and process hundreds of gigabytes of raw data on a daily basis. All of that fuels the pursuit of top-class performance in software systems of all types.

If your company needs a high-performance software system, get in touch with us! Our Java developers have a lot of experience with software systems in which throughput and latency matter above all else.

7 Practical Tips on How to Speed Up the Software Development Process

Arek Krysik — Wed, 28 Dec 2022 15:10:09 +0000

Software development in itself is a complex process consisting of various little parts, methodologies, and factors that have to work in tandem in order to yield positive results. When one part of this complex machine fails, all remaining elements will also suffer in the process, negatively impacting the overall speed of the entire development process.

In this article, we are going to cover the most common factors hurting the speed of software development, as well as some practical tips from our extensive experience on how to improve it.

What does software development speed depend on?

1. Complexity

This point is pretty much self-explanatory, but let’s look at it the following way.

Back in the pioneering days of gaming, when consoles like the Atari 2600 were all the rage, it was popular for a single developer to make a complete game in a couple of months.

These days a big triple-A title, like Red Dead Redemption 2, can take a team of hundreds of top-class developers years to develop.

This is all because the complexity and scope of such projects have grown by orders of magnitude in the past decades.

There are several various obstacles that a development team will encounter during its work. The more complex the project, the more hurdles coders will have to overcome.

2. People

People are a company’s most valuable asset.

However, their work is not linear, and they do not maintain the same level of efficiency the entire time. This is completely expected and natural. There are periods during the year, such as the holiday season or Christmas when it is expected to see a much slower software development speed as many people take their days off.

Another issue that affects the speed of the software development process is the size of the team.

Even though the performance of a whole team depends on the contribution of each member, increasing the team size won’t always lead to better results. The success of each project relies mostly on the efficiency of internal communication.

It should be a priority for developers to enjoy working with each other. Through a very careful recruitment process, we have built teams where communication is seamless. Not only does job satisfaction grow on a daily basis, but also customer satisfaction.

In most cases, a development team of more than seven people may experience problems with finding common ground on current tasks. The solution is to support the team with an experienced project manager.

There is also one more issue – skills and experience of developers.

It’s common to think that with highly-skilled team members, you can expect a faster development speed. However, it does not mean that you should completely disregard less-experienced coders. The key for product owners is to provide every team member with tasks suited to their level as well as their area of expertise.

3. Framework

In the IT field, a framework is a structure that allows programmers to build working code, resulting in an overall faster software development process.

It is a sort of foundation that you can build applications upon. This way, there is no need for starting each project entirely from scratch.

Each framework is closely associated with a specific programming language and is suited to different types of tasks.

4. Resources

A relatively small change in project scope or requirements may cause a substantial rise in complexity. And that requires large changes in the software architecture and project design.

What software houses should avoid?

An uncontrolled expansion of project scope, with more features and functionalities than was originally anticipated from the chosen architecture.

The development speed can be affected quite badly when requirements change too frequently and not all changes are discussed thoroughly with the team.

5. Code Quality

The development speed and code quality usually lie on opposite sides of the scale.

If you put too much emphasis on the speed of the project, code quality will inevitably suffer.

If a development team has tight deadlines and a huge amount of tasks to complete in a single sprint, they may rush the process. Skipping tests, taking shortcuts, and neglecting the overall code quality and clarity is the most possible scenario.

Even though at first, the project progress might move on quicker, bugs will pop up sooner or later. And that requires fixing and rewriting parts of the entire code. What’s more, such pressure is a straight path to making your developers burnt out and lose their passion and trust in your project.

The key takeaway is that – especially when dealing with big projects – proper planning, code reviews, and testing should play a vital part in the software development process.

Top 7 tips on how to speed up software development

1. Make use of the agile methodology

Recently, one of the most successful and popular ways of improving project management in software development companies is introducing agile methodology. It is currently being used in organizations all across the world to accelerate workflows and keep up with the fast-paced future of work.

Agile is an iterative approach to project management and application development that helps teams deliver value to their customers faster and with fewer obstacles along the way.

At its core, there are self-organized and cross-functional teams that pay close attention to changing circumstances and user needs and adapt their projects accordingly. Development teams that work in scrum and agile methodology improve the quality of their code by working in short sprints with smaller deliverables.

Recent studies show that software development projects using Agile methodologies are 28% more successful, and currently almost 71% of software houses use Agile methodology with varying frequencies.

2. Get a small, self-organizing team for your project

Since project complexity can substantially increase the delivery time of a development project, the number of committed developers also influences the time of completion.

It is worth noting, though, that there isn’t a one-to-one correlation between these two things.

To put it differently, increasing the number of developers in a team does not automatically increase the software development speed.

Five senior developers can be more efficient than eight entry-level ones. Despite this, without proper management, large teams will encounter much more problems with internal communication as well as with the delegation of tasks.

From our experience, the approach that is the most effective is to break down a large development project into smaller, manageable chunks. You can then delegate these small components of the project to small, self-organizing teams.

Agile development combined with many small components and team structures built around them leads to small, but highly productive teams.

Combine that with solid and systematic tests and integration methodology, and you have a recipe for success.

All of that will enable developers to accomplish their goals much faster, as well as bring your customers desirable outcomes within agreed-upon timeframes.

3. Start with simple software architecture

Over the last couple of decades, technology has evolved rapidly. Many tech stacks have become obsolete, while some architectures have gained much popularity among the development community. We can differentiate 5 most common software architectures that are currently in use:

Monolithic architecture
Layered (n-tier) architecture
Event-driven architecture
Microservices architecture
Microkernel architecture

Each one is an upgrade over its predecessor, solving challenges that have risen through the years.

There’s no simple and ultimate answer to the question of the best software architecture since different solutions will work best in different business scenarios. It is worth keeping in mind, though, that in reality, most problems are just variations of previously solved ones.

When scoping for the best architectural solutions, you can search through similar applications and solutions, look for what they’ve used in the past and see how it served them in the long run.

There is also a possibility of integrating elements of different software architectures to achieve the best results.

However, to get this right, you will need an experienced and trustworthy team of knowledgeable software developers.

Taking that into account, it is better to keep in mind these 4 points when choosing, adjusting, and expanding your software architecture:

Simplicity,
Maintainability,
Interconnectivity,
Processing Performance.

4. Establish a clear product vision

Before you dive deeper into all the details of the project, a clear vision of the finished product has to be established.

Without a clear product vision, the software development team might have trouble seeing the big picture. There is a risk of frequent course changes as well as the presence of various disagreements on what to do next.

When developers do not see what value their work will provide, it can feel disorienting and demotivating.

Creating a cohesive product vision also helps when preparing a future road map and product development strategy, and to decide which tasks should be prioritized and which not. It will tell you what actions will bring the project to completion.

A clear and concise roadmap of the entire software development project should be built and discussed with the whole team before a software development process begins. Having a well-defined product vision and a firm plan for the coming months will enable you to determine the key performance indicators and metrics to track progress.

Another great way to accelerate software development is to build a minimum viable product (MVP) before going all in into end-to-end software product development.

MVP in software development is a pretty bare-bone version of a product with enough features to attract early-adopters to test the idea in the real market in the early stages of the software development cycle.

In doing so it might turn out that a lot of the initial feature ideas may prove unnecessary. It will also enable you to polish the entire product vision and roadmap to ensure future market viability.

5. Choose an active and engaged product owner

Another key aspect of boosting the pace of software development are project managers and product owners who play an active role in software development teams.

A product owner is a role in a team working in a scrum and agile methodology that is responsible for the entire project’s outcome. The product owner seeks to maximize a product’s value by managing and optimizing the product backlog.

A product owner is also responsible for one of the key parts of the entire software development process, i.e. outlining a strong vision of a finished product’s function and operation.

It will allow other team members to better define specific features and break them into specific backlog tasks.

So in a nutshell, a product owner in a modern, agile software development team is responsible for:

defining and developing product features;
creating and taking care of product backlog tasks;
connecting clients and stakeholders with team members, as well as working out satisfying terms of cooperation.

From our experience, the best outcomes for developers as well as clients take place when a product owner is a technical person who is also an active member of the development team itself.

Since the entire software development process is full of various complexities and nuances, a technical person who is familiar with each team member’s strengths and weaknesses will be able to accurately give realistic timeframes for the project, as well as delegate tasks from backlog to fellow team members.

6. Smooth the development process (short iterations = short feedback loop)

They say that iteration length should correlate with the release cycle.

At Stratoflow we tend to follow a different approach and believe that shorter iterations provide the development team with more much-needed feedback.

A short feedback loop enabled by the short iterations software development approach gives the team more opportunities to reflect and improve their work practices.

That’s another of the core parts of agile methodology: putting emphasis on delivering working software to users as quickly as possible using recurring short development cycles.

We believe that a development cycle (sprint) should typically encompass two weeks in which the team focuses on building a specified set of functionalities.

This ensures flexibility and adaptability when necessary changes have to be made with every development sprint.

7. Share successes and failures with your team

Almost all experienced software teams will have their own best practices developed throughout the years.

Each senior developer has dealt with some unique obstacles in the past during their career and maybe in the process developed some innovative method that could prove to be very helpful for future projects.

Sharing successes and failures with a development team can not only improve relations between individual team members but also act as a great learning experience for less skilled developers.

Some good practices can even be later developed into full-fledged development standards as long as there is consensus among expert developers, they are documented, agreed upon by all teams in the company, and most importantly – introduced to all levels of the organization.

Conclusions

Without a doubt, software production time is an incredibly consuming process. Bigger development projects can take an entire organization made up of numerous experienced programmers months or even years to develop.

It is thus crucial to implement steps that will increase overall development speed in order to stay within agreed-upon project timeframes.