Systems and methods for software development

• US 20050160395A1
• Filed: 01/14/2005
• Published: 07/21/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 04/08/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TopCoder, Inc. (Wipro Limited)
• Original Assignee: TopCoder, Inc. (Wipro Limited)
• Inventors: Hughes, John M.
• Granted Patent: US 7,778,866 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/102
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/20 Software design
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06398 Performance of employee with respect to a job function
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0208 Trade or exchange of goods or services in exchange for incentives or rewards
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

This invention relates to methods and a system for developing software. In one embodiment, a method for developing software includes communicating a specification for the design of a software program to a first plurality of developers, in response to the specification, receiving a design from a subset of the developers to a subset of the developers, facilitating a design review process for scoring the designs, selecting one design based on its score, communicating the selected design to a second plurality of software developers, in response to the design, receiving software programs from a subset of the second plurality of developers, facilitating a software review process for scoring the programs, and selecting one program based on its score. In another embodiment, a method for the distributed development of software includes providing a software development system to a distributed community of developers, the system including software development software that utilizes a structured development methodology, a communication server, and a review board for determining the quality of submitted software; accepting a request to create a software program; and facilitating the development of the program by a subset of the distributed community of developers using the software development system.

Claims

1. A computerized method for developing software programs, the method comprising:

communicating a specification for the design of a software program to a first plurality of developers;

receiving, from each of a subset of the first plurality of software developers, in response to the communicated specification, a design for the software program;

facilitating a design review process for scoring each of the received designs;

selecting one design from the received designs based at least in part on its score in the design review process;

communicating the selected design to a second plurality of software developers;

receiving, from each of a subset of the second plurality of software developers, in response to the communicated design, a software program;

facilitating a software review process for scoring each of the received programs; and

selecting one program from the received programs based at least in part on its score in the software review process.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the software program comprises a program selected from the group of a component, an application, a module, and a library.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the first plurality of software developers were rated in one or more coding competitions.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the first plurality of developers is selected, at least in part, based on having a minimum rating received in the one or more coding competitions.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the developers are rated at least in part based on the score associated with a design or a program.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising associating a difficulty level with the software program.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the developers are rated at least in part based on the difficulty level associated with the design or the program.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the plurality of software developers are geographically distributed.

9. The method of claim 1 where the first plurality of developers and the second plurality of developers are different.

10. The method of claim 1 wherein the software program design comprises one or more of a requirements document, an activity diagram, a case document, test cases, a prototype, and a UML document.

11. The method of claim 1 wherein the specification is communicated using an on-line application.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the on-line application communicates over the Internet.

13. The method of claim 1 further including rewarding the software developer that submitted the selected design.

14. The method of claim 13 wherein the reward is monetary.

15. The method of claim 13 wherein the reward is an increased skill rating.

16. The method of claim 1 further including rewarding the software developer that submitted the selected program.

17. The method of claim 16 wherein the reward is monetary.

18. The method of claim 16 wherein the reward is an increased skill rating.

19. The method of claim 1 further comprising, prior to communicating the specification, receiving at least a portion of the specification from an entity requesting the development of a software program.

20. The method of claim 1 wherein the design review process is performed by a plurality of reviewers.

21. The method of claim 20 wherein each of the plurality of reviewers were rated in a computer programming competition.

22. The method of claim 21 wherein the ratings of each of the plurality of reviewers are above a predetermined minimum rating.

23. The method of claim 20 wherein the design review process comprises aggregating scores from each of the plurality of reviewers into a summary score and the selection of one design is based on the summary score.

24. The method of claim 1 wherein the software review process is performed by a plurality of reviewers.

25. The method of claim 24 wherein each of the plurality of reviewers were rated in a computer programming competition.

26. The method of claim 25 wherein the ratings of each of the plurality of reviewers are above a predetermined maximum rating.

27. The method of claim 23 wherein the software review process comprises aggregating scores from each of the plurality of reviewers into a summary rating and the selection of one program is based on the summary score.

28. The method of claim 1 wherein the facilitated design review comprises one or more of reading design documents, completing a review form, and identifying changes to be incorporated into the design by the software developer who submitted the design.

29. The method of claim 28 wherein the review form is an on-line form.

30. The method of claim 28 wherein the identified changes are designated mandatory or optional at the reviewers discretion.

31. The method of claim 1 wherein the received program comprises one or more of source code, object code, and compiled code.

32. The method of claim 1 further comprising distributing the selected program.

33. The method of claim 32 further comprising providing support for the distributed software program.

34. The method of claim 1 wherein further comprising receiving an appeal from a software developer contesting the score assigned to their design.

35. The method of claim 1 wherein further comprising receiving an appeal from a software developer contesting the score assigned to their program.

36. A method of distributed software development comprising:

providing a software development system to a distributed community of software developers, the system comprising;

software development software facilitating the development and testing of software programs using a structured development methodology;

a communication server communicating with the software for delivering the software development software to a distributed community of software developers; and

a review board comprising one or more programmers capable of determining the quality of software developed by the distributed community of software developers;

accepting a request to create a software program from an entity; and

facilitating the development of the software program using the software development system by at least a subset of the community of software developers.

37. The method of claim 36 wherein the software programs are programs selected from the group of components, applications, modules, and libraries.

38. The method of claim 36 wherein the software developers were rated based on their participation in one or more coding competitions.

39. The method of claim 36 wherein the software development system is distributed geographically.

40. The method of claim 39 wherein the geographical distribution is administered via the Internet.

41. The method of claim 36 wherein the software development system is implemented as a java applet.

42. The method of claim 36 wherein the review board is comprised of programmers that were rated in a coding competition.

43. The method of claim 36 wherein quality of the software is determined, at least in part by the review of design documents, source code, object code, compiled code, class definitions, and methods by the review board.

44. The method of claim 36 wherein the structured development methodology comprises multiple phases.

45. The method of claim 44 wherein the multiple phases comprise one or more of a specification phase, a design phase, a development phase, a testing phase, and a support phase.

46. The method of claim 36 wherein the development environment facilitates one or more of:

the development of UML models, the development of case models, the development of computer code, the compilation of computer code, and the testing of computer code.

47. The method of claim 36 further comprising receiving developed software programs from a subset of the community of software developers.

48. The method of claim 47 further comprising selecting one or more of the received programs to be delivered to the entity based on the quality of the software programs.

49. The method of claim 48 further comprising rewarding the developers that submitted the one or more selected software programs.

50. The method of claim 49 wherein the reward is monetary.

51. The method of claim 49 wherein the reward is an increased skill rating.

52. A computerized method of evaluating software programs comprising the steps of:

communicating requirements for the development of a software program to a population of software developers;

in response to the communicated requirements, receiving from each of a subset of the population of software developers a candidate software program and one or more test cases for testing the received candidate software program;

testing each of the received software programs using test cases received from two or more of the subset of the population of software developers; and

scoring the received candidate software programs based at least in part on the results of the testing step.

53. The method of claim 52 wherein the software developers are geographically distributed.

54. The method of claim 52 wherein the software developers were rated in a coding competition.

55. The method of claim 52 wherein the received candidate software programs include one or more of source code, object code, compiled code, class definitions, methods, applications, and components.

56. The method of claim 52 wherein the submitted test cases comprise sample data to be used as input for the candidate software program.

57. A computerized system for evaluating the functionality of software programs comprising:

a communications server for communicating requirements for the development of a software program to a population of software developers and, in response to the communicated requirements, receiving from each of a subset of the population of software developers a candidate software program and one or more test cases for testing the received candidate software program;

a testing server for testing each of the received software programs using test cases received from two or more of the subset of the population of software developers; and

a scoring server in communication with the testing server for scoring the received candidate software programs based at least in part on test results received from the testing server.

58. The system of claim 57 wherein the software developers are geographically distributed.

59. The system of claim 57 wherein the software developers were rated in one or more coding competitions.

60. The system of claim 57 wherein the received candidate software programs include one or more of source code, object code, compiled code, class definitions, methods, applications, and components.

61. The system of claim 57 wherein the submitted test cases comprise sample data to be used as input for the candidate software program.