BRIDGING THE CODING PRACTICE GAP OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT IN INDUSTRY AND ACADEMIA REGARDLESS OF PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE

ALFRED MENSAH ATOMBOH B. ED (INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)

Background to study
Coding practices are a combination of a set of acceptable rules or standards set by developers and experts that are applied to make source code bug-free and readable in order to promote efficient development of software. It is also used as a standard for uniformity in a team development environment or outsourced work to reduce errors and the time spent reviewing code. Best coding practices evolve by first applying accepted rules and standards and then reflecting on the rules or standard for improvement. From platform to platform developers advocate different coding practices just as from one development house to another. These varieties finds their way into academia and thus complicate issue for the graduate who has to unlearn and in some cases learn new practices in order to fit into a one development house or another. A recent study by researchers at the University of Texas and Stanford University into web programming that incorporate the cloud service reported that more emphasis should be placed on security processes in coding practices to solve the problem vulnerabilities of application programming interfaces (APIs) services. Source code analysis was advocated to catch errors automatically. A study conducted by Microsoft in April 2012 identified single sign on (SSO) services as a vulnerability and advocated for a more consistent approach to integration through the use of templates provided to web developers and recommended performing analysis in an iterative fashion, since the complexity of such systems make it difficult to carry out comprehensive automatic testing. (Bubinas, 2013). In another breathe, an article for the best fifteen coding practices for web programming listed commenting and documenting, consistent indentation, avoid obvious comments, code grouping, code refactoring, separation of code and data, read open source code, object oriented vs.

procedural, alternate syntax inside templates, capitalize SQL special words, consistent temporary names, file and folder organization, limit line length, avoid deep nesting, DRY principle and consistent naming scheme (Guzel, 2011). These studies on web programming is a tip on the iceberg of the multitude and varieties of coding practices that are advocated as there are programming branches on different platform that exists. I therefore seek to apply scientific principles to research on bridging the coding practices gap of software development in industry and academia regardless of programming language.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

In order to achieve the ultimate aim of bridging the coding practices gap of software development in industry and academia regardless of programming language, the following objectives in the form of research questions would receive the researchers attention: 1. Will a unified coding practice work regardless of programming language? 2. Will a unified coding practice work regardless of development house? 3. Will a unified coding practice work regardless of platform? 4. Will a unified coding practice bridge the gap in industry and academia?

METHODOLOGY OF STUDY
I intend administering interview sampled professionals and educators, after which I would study and collate coding practices as advocated for different programming languages and looking at the possibility of applying them in programming languages other than intended. The coding practices of developing houses would be obtained using interview and questionnaire. In the same vein university programming students would sampled for them to try out coding practices as exists in industry.

Questionnaire would be administered and the feedback from the sampled university students would also be taken from the university to industry. Collected data would be analysed using Analysis Toolpak add-in in Microsoft Excel and SPSS. Essential to the study is problem solving skills, extraction of information related to a topic from raw data and identifying the trends and patterns; these skills I possess.

CONTRIBUTION TO KNOWLEDEGE
The study would be adding a unified body of coding practice that would hold irrespective of programming language, development industry in-house practices and academia. It is the ultimate aim of the study to improve the body knowledge of coding practices that would seek to bridge the gap between industry and academia.

Bibliography
Bubinas, C. (2013, January 31). klocwork. Retrieved March 31, 2013, from better-coding-practicesneeded-to-secure-apis: http://www.klocwork.com/blog/static-analysis/better-codingpractices-needed-to-secure-cloud-service-apis/ Guzel, B. (2011, March 30). net.tutsplus.com. Retrieved March 31, 2013, from top-15-best-practicesfor-writing-super-readable-code: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/top15-best-practices-for-writing-super-readable-code/