Agile Development Environment for Programming and Testing (ADEPT) – Eclipse Makes Project Management eXtreme

Abstract

Genesys Solutions is a bespoke IT company, first of its kind, run by MSc and fourth year students of Department of Computer Science, University of Sheffield under the supervision of Prof. Mike Holcombe and Dr. Marian Gheorghe. Genesys follows the eXtreme Programming (XP) methodology for software development based on client requirements. The commitment towards XP and its ‘good software practices’ can be considered as the greatest strength of Genesys.

Agile Development Environment for Programming and Testing (ADEPT) is our contribution towards supporting the XP methodology by adopting the Eclipse platform along with its associated tools and frameworks within Genesys Solutions. It aimed to teach good software practices in Genesys to support XP by providing a software development life cycle management tool that will encompass the best practices of XP. It comprises of tools based on the principles of XP such as story cards, system metaphor, estimations, testing and quality assurance. ADEPT was the result of the IBM Eclipse Innovation 2004 awarded to the University of Sheffield. Also, based on the previous year’s performance and more innovative ideas to implement more principles of XP we have been awarded another grant under the IBM Eclipse Innovation 2005 programme.