Major Developments Major Developments by Calendar Year

April 23, 2025

Major Changes In Software Development Methodologies Over The Last Two Decades

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — Ralph C Dreher @ 12:45 PM

Over the past two decades, the software development industry has experienced a seismic shift. At one point in time, most software development organizations preferred rigid, linear approaches. In recent years, such methods have given way to more supple, iterative models.

Newer methodologies have emerged that enable developers to keep pace with the fast technological progressions and ever-changing market demands

Within the domain of software development, some of the most crucial changes have taken place in the last few years. Let’s explore those changes here.

The Rise of Agile Methodologies
Agile methodologies came to the fore in 2001. Ever since then, they have copiously transformed the way software products are constructed.

Some of the most widespread Agile methodologies include

  • Extreme Programming (XP)
  • Scrum
  • Kanban

Agile focused on iterative development, improved customer collaboration, and better receptiveness to change.

  • Such a shift allowed teams to:
  • Bring working software applications more regularly.
  • Familiarize quickly with the changing requirements.
  • Encourage close collaboration between the developers, end-users, and stakeholders.

The Emergence of DevOps
Once Agile took hold, it became clear that continuous collaboration and partnership between the development and operations teams were essential. It led to the birth of DevOps, a technological innovation that bridges the gap between IT operations and development. It encourages Continuous Delivery (CD), Continuous Integration (CI), and automated testing to transform the software delivery pipelines.

Key benefits of DevOps include:

  • Faster placement cycles.
  • Better collaboration between the teams.
  • Greater system scalability
  • Reliability.

Shift from Monolithic Architecture to Microservices Architecture
Over the last 20 years, software architecture has shifted from monolithic designs, where all the components were firmly coupled, to microservices architecture. Microservices break the applications into smaller, individualistically deployable services or components that connect through APIs.

This change has enabled:

  • Greater scalability
  • Resilience.
  • Easier maintenance and updates.
  • Faster development cycles occur as teams can work on multiple services simultaneously.

Technologies like Kubernetes, Docker, and serverless computing have accelerated the overall adoption of microservices.

The Influence of Lean Principles
Lean Software Development is a methodology derived from Lean manufacturing. It emphasizes continuous learning, waste elimination, and delivering the highest value to customers. Practices like Kanban boards and Value Stream Mapping are indispensable to Lean Software Development and help optimize workflows and improve competence.

Integration of AI and Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have introduced new dimensions to software development, with these technologies growing in prominence. Modern software development methodologies now incorporate AI-driven tools for:

  • Automated code generation
  • Debugging.
  • Predictive analytics for project management.
  • Enhancing user experiences by working with intelligent applications.

Remote and Distributed Software Development Teams
Today, remote and distributed software development has become a prevalent practice. Communication and collaboration tools have enabled software developers to work impeccably across diverse locations and time zones. Thanks to tools like Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams. It allowed software development firms to hire the best minds to work with them irrespective of where they are based.

December 30, 2014

Major Employment Laws that You Should Know

Filed under: 2014 — Tags: , — Winson @ 5:23 AM

Whether you are a business owner or an employee, there are a few employment labor laws that you should know. These laws tell you of your rights and responsibilities in the organization. Ignoring these laws amounts to violation and may lead to serious actions sometimes. So, you should know at least the major employment laws, if you are a business owner or an employee. The purpose of this article is to make you know about a few major laws.

Wage laws
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is the law that sets the federal minimum wage or overtime pay. Minimum wage varies from state to state; and one thing that you should know here is, if the state has set higher minimum wage than the federal minimum wage, then it means that the higher minimum wage will be considered and will be in effect.

Over time pay is for any type of work done in excess to what has been legally set by the law. In general, under the federal law, the employer should pay the employees 1.5 times more than the normal wage for the hours worked more than 40 hours a week.

Discrimination laws
There are many discrimination laws under various state or federal laws such as – job discrimination, wage discrimination, age discrimination, disability discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, sexual discrimination or harassment, etc. So, the employees of an organization must be aware of such discrimination laws of their state; and if they have faced any type of discrimination under the associated acts, they can make a claim, accordingly.

Workplace safety law
Workplace safety comes under OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act). It requires employers for making the workplace free from recognized hazards (illness and injuries). Under this act, the employer of an organization have several responsibilities that must be taken care and make the workplace safe and secure. The employees also have many rights under this Act.

Leave laws
Under Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), different employees have different time periods or limits for availing the leave with job protection, based on the acts the employee belongs to. So, make sure that you are aware of the limits from your employer, before you take leave.

A note to make here is that these laws may differ from state to state and across the countries. So, ensure checking with your organization or your employer regarding the employment laws (state or federal).

These are the common major employment laws that an employer or employee should be aware of. It is recommended that an employer must have these labor law posters in their organization, to make the employees know about the facts of labor law.
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November 19, 2014

Major Industries in Texas

Filed under: Business,Small Business — Tags: — Ralph C Dreher @ 2:55 AM

Texas is known for its fast growth, being safe and one of the smartest states in US. Highly educated, strong economy and talented workforce along with globally respected work force and institutions keeps it always on the leading point of business. In this article, we will discuss each major industry in Texas briefly.

  • Oil and gas: The refineries of Texas produce more than 4.7 million barrels of oil/day. Houston being one of the largest cities has more than 3,000 employers in energy sector. 200 chemical plants manufacturing 14% of the nations chemical output are located in Texas.
  • Aerospace and aviation: Texas aerospace and aviation industry have more than 20,000 employees with the major employers being Lockheed Martin, Bell aerospace, Raytheon, Gulf stream aerospace and Boeing.
  • Agriculture and food production: It is one of the top industries in Texas generating one in every seven jobs in Texas state.
  • The state has more than 247,000 farms covering all over 13.4 million acres.
  • Biotechnology and life sciences: Texas state has developed one of the top industries in biotechnology and life sciences.
  • It has more than 4,500 biotechnology, medical manufacturing, biomedical research and other companies related to life sciences with around 108,600 employees with an annual economic output more than $75 billion.
  • Manufacturing: Texas is the leading manufacturing states ranking first in the manufacture of electronic equipments like computers, military communication systems and electronic components.
  • Chemical manufacturing is ranks second in Texas. The state is a producer of benzene, fertilizers, ethylene, sulfuric acid and propylene.
  • Food processing sector takes the third place in manufacturing with beverages being the major part and others such as baked goods, soft drinks, preserved fruits and vegetables.
  • Mining: Texas state leads in production of mined products like natural gas and oil.
  • Texas state makes about 1/5th of the total oil production in the country and 1/3 rd of the total supply of natural gas.
  • It also leads in the production of crushed stone, lime, cement, sand, salt and gravel.
  • Communications and information technology: Communications and information technology in Texas state numbers more than 26,000 high technology companies and 470,000 employers.
  • Micro electronics and computer technology and their research and development at Texas higher education institutions top at $74 million annually.
  • Transportation and logistics: Airports, railroads, highways and ports present in Texas state make it a logistics and distribution leader, strategic export and import gateway.
  • The state has 27 commercial airports and 29 ports.
  • Services: Business, personal services group and community are the biggest service industries present in Texas.
  • Various industries are included in this sector which include private health care, law firms, hotels, engineering companies and other repair shops.
  • Retail trade and whole sale trade including food products, petroleum products and motor vehicles rank second under services in Texas sate.
  • Finance, real estate services, insurance ranks third in the state where Dallas and Houston being the major financial centers of Texas state.

From these data, it’s clear how Texas state has diversified industries present all over the State with corresponding developments and providing employment to large number of educated workers.
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June 27, 2014

Best Ways to Choose an Ad Network Company

Filed under: 2014 — Tags: — Winson @ 9:18 AM

Are you an advertiser looking for the right ad network company? Then, you must know how to identify the best ad network company based on your requirements. Choosing the best ad network or advertising network will generate revenue for your ads and also drive traffic for your website. Below are some ways through which you can choose the best ad network for your website.

1. Reputation of ad network company:
At first you must see the reputation and reliability of the company. This plays a major role. If the company has a good reputation and is providing the services based on the user requirements then we can say it is a reputed company. You must also have a thorough investigation of the ad network company.

2. Ad revenue based on the traffic:
Ask for the ad revenues based on the traffic i.e., the percentage of ad revenue they will be taking for placing your ads in the publisher website. This should be discussed before signing the agreement.

3. Customer service provided by ad network:
Before placing ads, see the publishers website and make a complete review on their site and see whether they are providing good customer service.

4. Question ad network company in all aspects:
If you are having any doubts regarding the ad network company, question them and get your doubts cleared then and there itself.

5. Ad relevant to content:
Ask them if the ad that they are placing is relevant to the content of the website or not.

6. Ask for the traffic of the publishers website:
Check whether your ad will be placed on the site that drives more traffic or less traffic. It is must for an advertiser to know this point from the ad network service provider.

7. Check for qualitative ads:
Quality of the ads is the major factor you should look for. See whether ads served by the ad network are pleasing or annoying and also check whether they are related to the content.

8. See the ad type:
After checking the quality it is necessary to see the ad type. Some ad networks provide only text based ads and some provide only text with image ads and some provide both. So, it is your responsibility to look after which type of ad you need for promoting your website.

9. Placement of the ad:
If ad type is chosen then ask them were the ad shows in their website i.e., location of the ad because some ad networks show your ads.

10. Not choosing low-budget ad network:
Don’t look for the cheapest ad network, rather check for the one’s that provide good quality ads that helps your website in getting more traffic.

11. Reference for ad network:
At last ask them for case studies and references i.e., ask for clients with same category. This will give you some confidence and helps you to trust the ad network you are choosing.

These are some of the best ways through which you can choose an ad network company.
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May 8, 2014

All That Businesses Need to Know About Inbound Marketing

Filed under: 2014 — Tags: — Ralph C Dreher @ 3:13 AM

Inbound marketing deals with attracting warm leads (potential to turn into sales) in contrast to outbound marketing which deals with cold leads. It mainly uses interesting content to acquire customers. Inbound marketing will be advantageous to companies that have tight marketing budgets. It offers a unique combination of more efficiency at a relatively less expenditure.

Inbound marketing comprises various activities like search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, blogging and social media marketing. SEO deals with working out on your website so that you get better rankings in search results, which is likely to increase online visibility. Content marketing involves various activities like creating useful and unique content, providing articles, white papers, blogs etc. Content is used as a sales pitch to a certain extent by providing value to customers.

Process of inbound marketing
There are different stages in inbound marketing which help in giving a structure to your marketing activities. It involves four to five stages. The first stage is to design a strategy that attracts website traffic, the second is to convert website visitors into leads, the third is to convert leads into sales and the final stage is to measure the results and accordingly redesign the strategy or take corrective actions.

Advantages of inbound marketing
Cost effective
Inbound marketing is completely done online, which offers many chances to reduce your marketing costs. In traditional marketing, targeting specific customers is difficult. But in inbound marketing you can easily target a specific section of customers, so you will spend only on those online users who are more likely to become your customers. As you do not depend on mass media for your marketing activities inbound marketing saves a considerable amount.

Availability of measurement tools
Another most likely advantage of inbound marketing is that you can easily measure the effectiveness of marketing campaign. This means, you can get a clear picture on return on investment. You can measure change in the traffic to your website using analytical tools. Doing these measurements and analysis will help in knowing which marketing activities are working and which are not. This will help in designing new strategies which will further improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing activities.

Interactive communication
With the help of articles, you will be able to attract online users to your website. Once the users feel that the information is helpful they start interacting with you by posting comments, sending mails, etc. When the communication becomes interactive, it is likely to lead to customer engagement which is important to make customers interested in your products. You can also use social media to communicate with customers as they get a chance to directly interact with you. This helps in building good relationships with your customers which is very important in any business.

Value to customers through rich content
The rich information you provide through inbound marketing not just prompts customers to buy your products, but gives them valuable information they are looking for and thus adds value to your service. You provide value to customers and in turn you get benefits in the form of quality leads. By providing good content, you can show your expertise which could make your customers trust you as an expert in your niche.

These advantages show the importance of inbound marketing that not only helps businesses reduce their marketing budgets but provides effective results when implemented properly.
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