In software development, we often use terminology that makes sense to us but doesn’t have much meaning to anyone in other fields. A name that often elicits quizzical looks is the term “backend.” 

You are probably most familiar with interacting with the “frontend” or presentation layer in software. Frontend technology generally enables what you see daily interacting with websites, mobile apps, and any other software interface. 

What are backend services, and why should you care? Backends are the invisible elements that power software applications. The backend is a data access layer that powers the presentation layer (frontend). 

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There is an apocryphal story about a management committee meeting with three items on the agenda: design a power plant, build a bike shed for employee use, supply refreshments for the Welfare Committee. The story goes that the first item was approved in a few minutes. The second item turned into a forty-minute discussion about what color the shed should be and who should get to use it. The third item it was decided, after deliberation, did not have enough information to make a decision, so it was added to the next planned meeting’s agenda. The vast majority of the time in the meeting was spent on the least consequential of the agenda items. This is bike-shedding.

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Here we have yet another blog article espousing all the ways to break through roadblocks to getting your project over the line and into your customer’s hands. I don’t know how much of this will be new. Probably less than 1%. That doesn’t mean it is irrelevant. Time and time again, I run across teams who have trouble covering the last 10% of the ground necessary to release their project.
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by Kristen Jourdonais

One of my favorite things about working at CodeNoise is the ability to work on multiple projects. Variety in the types of products we work on gives me a lot of fresh new challenges that are interesting to solve. Sometimes, the process of working through problems with one product can provide helpful insight into totally unrelated products. 

As with everything, variety also has its challenges. One of the operational hurdles people ask us about is how we manage to keep multiple projects on track at the same time. Read the rest of this entry »