GDS Reveals Key Ideas Underpinning New Digital Marketplace

The Government Digital Service (GDS) has published a new blog post outlining its plans for the new Digital Marketplace that will see G-Cloud and the Digital Services Framework combined.

Written by Chris Porter, a technical architect and senior developer of the project, it outlines the key tools and techniques being used to ensure the process of testing and releasing new products is quick and effective.

As with all new government projects, the Agile approach to working is being used in the development of the Digital Marketplace.

“The Digital Marketplace uses Agile development, testing and automation techniques to ensure high levels of confidence in the quality of the code,” Porter claimed.

“It provides a technology platform that enables a user-centric design approach and that means we can react quickly to changing user needs,” he added.

Porter notes that the Marketplace is not just a new version of Cloudstore; it is being built from the ground upwards, in a new open source technology stack.

Open Source Tools in Use

He says that freely available, highly testable software that uses Agile techniques is being used, including:

• grails – uses the Groovy programming language and in based on Java. Provides a web development and access platform that works well with other technologies
• elasticsearch – a faster, more effective search already mentioned as a new feature in a previous blog post
• postgreSQL – an open source database.

Pairing, Testing and Automation Essential

Alongside these particular tools, the blog post says the Marketplace team takes a “pairing approach” to the work – that is, all software is peer reviewed and no isolated decisions are made.

This is said to have the benefit of ensuring at least two members have knowledge about a certain aspect of the project at all times.

Pairs of people are frequently rotated and they occur across disciplines, which Porter claims enhances this approach to working.

Besides detailing the tools and approach, the blog post also highlighted the need for regular testing and automated quality assurance.

Porter said that this system allows all developers to see to immediately see any errors via a team monitor and find solutions.

This week, it was announced that G-Cloud 5 is set to go live later this month, on the 22nd.

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