The Top 3 Projects Challenges Developers Face are...

[brad jones]

The results have been tabulated for the top three challenges that developers face on projects....

To find out what they are, you can read what I wrote at:

http://www.devx.com/enterprise/Article/45316





More...

[abhijit]

I feel "Poor planning" should have been at the top of the list.

[Jenner]

No time, no testing, no detailed information; sounds like the top three challenges for every engineering project. Nothing new here.

[brad jones]

Nothing new here.

Some times it is good to know that there is nothing new to know....

[techgnome]

That's true... at least this is one trend we don't need to keep current on.

-tg

[RhinoBull]

3. Insufficient or no requirements

In my mind developer has to take initiative when he/she feels business analyst failed to deliver - basically work with your end user more often and don't entirely rely on somebody.


2. Poor unit and system testing.

By Who may I ask you? What happend to IT Test?


1. Not enough time...

Stop whining and get back to work...
But on more serious note it's mostly because of very poor planning on both management and development sides.

[techgnome]

@RB

3 - That assumes there WAS A BA in the first place... or real requirements... sometimes it's a lack of process and no one wants to rock the boat...

2 - Testing? There's no time to test. Besides... w/o requirements, how do you test? There's no baseline, no control data.

1 - Sometimes it's not bad planning... but rather unrealistic expectations. Or sometimes unexpected things come up, and it's simply going to take longer, and the other side doesn't want to hear it.

Again... none of this stuff is new... nor is much of it going to change anytime soon. There will always be bad requirements, no testing and never enough time to do any of it.

-tg

[RhinoBull]

I'm not here to argue anything with anyone, however my opinion is based on my previous experience.
Although, I am not an opinionated person (far not at all) it will be difficult to change it [my opinuion] in regards to this thread's topic.
I have been on both sides so I definitely know how things can be handled.
Most of those complaints are simply excuses.

[NeedSomeAnswers]

All perfectly reasonable choices as the top 3 challenges.

Personally in my job the top 3 challenges are;

1, The Project Manager refusing to accept the completion date, and therefore moving the entire regression testing section to before we had finished Developing.

2, Lack of testing unit testing environment. After 18 months of asking we finally received a new Server to run VM's on so we can test against all different configurations, and now it has sat unused for the last 3 months as we cant get them to buy MSDN licenses for the OS's.

3, Lack of succession planning. My boss is turning 65 in a month and is retiring, he has worked on this product for over 20 years, in fact he practically invented it also he is the only c++ coder in the project team. (and about 1/3 of the product is in c++) They have yet to make any plans to replace him, mainly because they are l creating a new generation product entirely in .Net but they are so far behind that it could be another year or more before it is ready.

Oh for a properly run project !

[RobDog888]

1. Overallocated resources. Im allocated 80+ hours a week currently.
2. Project changes and feature creap
3. Deadlines. Fit an insurmountable amount of work in an unrealistic timeframe.

[RhinoBull]

1. Overallocated resources. Im allocated 80+ hours a week currently.

That sounds like "not eneough resources". You are basically working 1 for 2 - it could be bad management under estimating entire project or "bad" ceo/cfo not willing to spend extras for development.
As far as you concern it could also be good (for awhile if you are on an hourly rate) or bad (if you are an exempt full time employee - in this case you're basically screwed).
If it's that bad get a new job if you can of course.

[RobDog888]

Im a professional slave working in an American sweatshop

Salary and they like to squeeze all they can out of us engineers since the market isnt great.

[abhijit]

Im a professional slave working in an American sweatshop

Salary and they like to squeeze all they can out of us engineers since the market isnt great.

I feel your pain.