SE Tip of the Day

Note: I'm going to try and start giving a SW Engineering tip that I find useful every so often. I know I'm no expert, but I'd like to think I am good at what I do.

Today's tip goes along with the maintenance phases of a project.

Tip:	When using third-party tools and libraries in your application, be sure to keep them up-to-date in your code base.

When you initially decide to use a certain version of a programming language or a third-party library package you are doing so to get the current product out the door and into use. In most cases, as soon the product is shipped newer versions of these technologies have been put into release. Often you are faced with a decision of whether to assign levels of effort to try to incorporate the new technologies with your product or to simply move forward with the status quo. I believe it would be a mistake to attempt to constantly update your code base as new versions of technologies are released. However, I believe that the discussion of upgrading to new versions of technologies should occur at least once a year. Otherwise, prolonged use of technologies that become out of date will create maintenance problems as those technologies will begin to lose the amount of support needed when having problems associated with them. So take the time to carefully upgrade your tools and libraries so your product stays with the current technologies.