HIRING BACKUP CODERS
So why am I telling you this? After all, the
chances you might hire a programmer who
deliberately puts logic bombs into your custom
code are pretty slim. But any number of other
things can go wrong when someone is writing
code for your organization.
“What happens if that person leaves or drops
dead?” asks Jack Gold, Principal Analyst at J.
Gold Associates. Gold suggests that when you’re
hiring someone to do development, you always
need a backup. After all, custom code is your
code. There’s no third party to whom you can
turn if something goes wrong unless you plan for
it. He also suggested a few other steps companies
need to take to protect themselves during the
development process. Chief among them are
required code reviews.
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out what’s in your code,” said Alan Zeichick,
Principal Analyst at Camden Associates,
“including things like logic bombs, security
vulnerabilities, or stupid errors [such as hard-
wiring the location of a database].”
“There are other reasons to do code reviews,”
Zeichick said. “It helps your development team
get a better understanding of how development
works, helps junior programmers get a better
understanding. Code reviews are also good for
helping the team manager get a handle on the
quality of the development team and get an
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@wrash
Wayne Rash
