I have a software development business on the side of my day job. Recently I have focused my business on writing small programs that would be of interest to hackers. The programs I develop are posted on my Black of Hat blog. Currently I am giving my programs away for free to try to increase readership of my new blog.
The interesting thing about these programs is that I have not been subjecting them to rigorous testing. Often times the goal is to get some software posted out on my blog quickly. So I run a couple quick unit tests, fix the obvious bugs, and warn my readers that the software may be in an early state.
My goal is to write many useful programs quickly. Of course I plan to improve and fix any bugs that pop up. But there is a definite lack of V&V being done. The question is whether formal test methods would be of any value in this fast paced environment. I don't get any direct penalty for releasing a program that crashes and burns. There may be some unhappy readers which turn away from my blog. However I am considering the faster time to market to be the prime objective.
Perhaps I could take my next program developed by my side business, apply more thorough testing to it, and try to measure the outcome subjectively. I am not against going through a formal test cycle for these programs. The objective is to gain the most amount of readers so that I can monetize my blog. Any way I can do that more effectively is worthwhile. Besides I feel as if I may be developing bad habits in my side business software development. It would be easier if I use the same methods in both my day and night jobs.
