Obviously,
all of us here at LaGarde are excited about the
release of StoreFront 6.0.
But the development of a new product release is a
fascinating process that I thought might make an
interesting story for our StoreFront community.
The
development process started last March with extensive
research conducted by our StoreFront Product Manager,
Sarah Fender. Sarah worked to identify the features
most in demand from small and medium sized business
merchants and from the development community that
supports that market. The development process then
moved to the creation and documentation of a complete
set of coding standards. Strict variable typing and
naming standards were set forth. The coding standard
even includes specifications for the layout of code
and how the code is commented. Additional
specifications were developed for managing changes to
the code base throughout the development process.
Parallel
to the development of the technical process
specifications was the research supporting the
decision to build on Microsoft’s .NET platform. Prior
to officially making that decision much additional
research was put into accessing the platform’s
readiness for use in the development of a widely
distributed commercial product. We surveyed a large
number of web hosts, developers and end user merchants
to determine how much support for .NET would be
present at the time that we anticipated release of the
StoreFront 6.0
product.
The next
step in the development process was the creation of
prototypes and screen shots with accompanying detailed
specifications on how each feature and function was to
work. These became the blueprint from which serious
coding could begin. A complete, documented testing and
quality control process was created to govern the
entire development process.
The
StoreFront development team consists of 12 members.
This includes a Product Manager, a Technical Product
Manager, a Quality Assurance Team Lead, a Graphic
Artist, two technical writing staff and 6 developers.
The developers were given different components of the
application to work on according to their areas of
expertise. Although Microsoft Source Safe appears to
not yet be quite ready for VB.NET we did use it for
source control to insure that we have a complete
system of version control for each change made to
every piece of code.
The Beta
process, partner preparation, marketing planning, etc.
are another story by themselves. I'll save that for
next time.
Now, today
downloads are going out as I write. The development
team has gone home to take a well deserved rest and
start thinking about what’s next and the sales and
technical support teams are waiting by the phones. My
hearty gratitude goes out to all of our hard working
staff and to our customers who have anxiously awaited
this new arrival.
Thanks!
Bob
