Adding functionality

Much of the software that we work on has a long history. Often, the basis was laid in the eighties of the last century. Even so, the software is usually critical for a company or institute. Over the years, much has been added to the code and further extensions may be needed to:

• answer new questions that arise in the market,
• incorporate new insights in the field, or
• offer a better user experience for a new generation.

As most of these software packages are so extensive, a complete redevelopment is usually out of the question. The bulk of our work is therefore adding functionality to existing software.

VORtech as an experienced partner for computational software

Due to their background and experience, our software engineers are capable to quickly find their way in an existing application, even if it is extremely complex and employs advanced mathematical methods, algorithms and data structures. They can also deal with software that is not neatly organised, which is often the case with code that has been under development for a long time.

Their special knowledge and expertise in the field of computational software makes our developers specially suited for building additions to this kind of software. When developing extensions and modifications, we take care to:

• Respect the original architecture and programming style of the software (unless there is no visible architecture or programming style to begin with).
• Document the extension within the existing documentation structure.
• Test the original functionality of the software to make sure that existing functionality is not damaged.
• Add test cases to test the new functionality.
• Train the users to properly handle the new functionality.

Obviously, we will not shy away from suggesting improvements to the existing code that may reduce the costs of maintenance and the risks of errors.