Free tool or paid tool?
Your team will build a school app. You must choose tools. One tool is free and you can change its code. Another costs 20 pounds a month per person and has a support team.
Which is better? It depends. A good developer can explain why. This lesson shows you how.
Key words
| Word | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | A tool or service that developers build on or use for their work. | GitHub |
| Repository | A store for code and its full history. | |
| Branching | Working on a copy of the code so the main code stays safe. | |
| Build | Turning source code into a program that can run. | |
| Deployment | Putting the software where users can use it. | |
| Proprietary | Owned by a company. You pay for it and cannot see or change the code. | |
| Open source | The code is public. Anyone may read it, use it and often change it. | |
| Licence | The rules that say how you may use a piece of software. | |
| Workflow | The steps a team follows to get a change from idea to release. |
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Six stages, six kinds of platform
| Stage | What it is for | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Coding | Writing and fixing code | Visual Studio Code, PyCharm, Visual Studio |
| Repositories | Storing code and its history | GitHub, GitLab, Gitea, Bitbucket |
| Branching | Working on changes safely | Git, which the repositories above use |
| Building | Making a runnable program, automatically | GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Maven |
| Testing | Checking the software works | pytest, JUnit, Selenium |
| Deployment | Putting it where users can reach it | Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, Azure |
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Proprietary or open source?
Proprietary software belongs to a company. You pay, and you follow its licence. You cannot see the code.
Open source software has public code. Many open source tools are free. You can read the code and often change it. But every open source tool has a licence too, and you must follow it.
Proprietary and open source
| Proprietary | Open source | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Usually a fee, such as a monthly price per person | Often free to use |
| The code | Hidden | Public |
| Help | A support team you can call | Community forums, or paid support from a company |
| Changes | Only the owner can change it | You can change it, if the licence allows |
| Examples | Microsoft Visual Studio, Jira | Git, Gitea, Linux, Python |
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The choice changes your design
data-callouts.important.label
A tool shapes what you can build. A proprietary service may be hard to leave later. An open source library may have a licence that says you must share your own code. Read the licence before you design.
Quick check
Have a go
Quick check
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
Platforms and the workflow
Platforms also decide how the team works together. A workflow is the set of steps for a change: a branch, a review, a test, a release.
Two famous workflows are called gitFlow and GitHub flow. You will try both in the next lesson.