Technologies To Improve Group-Written Code?

iamdjsamba asks: "I've been working at my company as a programmer for about 4 months now, and it's apparent that the working methods could do with a refresh. Practices that we need to start changing are things like: non source-controlled changes that get uploaded to our website when they aren't ready; poor code commenting; and very little in the way of code reuse (if I write a class that could be useful to others, I have no easy way of telling everyone about it). I'm currently looking into ways to change this, and was wondering if anyone on Slashdot had experience of what's good and what's not?"

Comments

Wow. Quit now

[BadAnalogyGuy]

You clearly don't have any managers or developers with any experience because the first thing that a bright manager or an experienced developer would do is install a source control system so that you don't end up in the kind of development shithole you've found yourself in.

I'd recommend leaving for a company that's going to be around for more than a year.

Create simple rules

[Bragi Ragnarson]

Create and enforce simple rules:

1. Limit access to deployment server - only one or two person can access the server. Even better - create automatic deployment scripts that can be run on the server by those persons.
2. Create staging server - where you deploy the code from repository. Do not deploy to production until you get a "go" from the client on staged version.
3. Use Trac - it is a great piece of software that allows sharing information between developers. It provides wiki, ticket handling and repository viewer. And you can subscribe to wiki changes RSS so you can easily publish documentation about your classes.
4. Use framework - frameworks usually come with a set of coding concepts that ease code reuse.
5. Communicate findings about bad practices - just talk with your colleagues and tell them how can they write better code, with examples
6. Introduce unit testing - person that writes unit tests gets a chance to look at own code the second time, which usually means improvements and cleanups.

And you can always switch to Ruby on Rails. It is a good example of framework that helps doing things the right way and gets in the way when you want to do something wrong.