On the MaltBlue.com blog Matt has posted four different keys he sees to making a good software development environment and make for happier developers (and managers).

A lot of the time when we’re developing applications they’re likely to be based around customizing or extending an existing application, such as WordPress, Joomla, Oxid eSales et al. In these cases, there’s a clear set of rules and guidelines to work with. [...] But what about when we’re building our own applications, bespoke ones, from scratch. [...] What do we do then? How do we set up a great software development methodology or set of processes to ensure that we develop cleanly, clearly and efficiently? In today’s post, I’m going to go through 4 areas which can serve as a solid and reliable basis for us to do just this.

The four key elements he sees are:

• Organized Development Environment
• Organized Deployment Approach
• Organized Testing Approach
• Have a Professional Bug/Issues Database

For each of these elements, he describes some of the methods and tools that can help make them possible.