If architects had to work like software developers
Oh so true :D
5 Comments
Wenn Architekten wie Software-Entwickler arbeiten müssten - Mariusz Henke on August 20th, 2009
[...] [gefunden bei: http://www.71squared.co.uk [...]
jezza on August 31st, 2009
Hi guys, wanted to talk to you about iphone work. Would you mind shooting me an email?
vaxorcist on September 11th, 2009
here’s my rant I left on that site…
Obviously the dynamic has to change… books have been written by Brooks, DeMarco, etc… but they’ve addressed the software side, not the customer/businessperson side, which is often where the randomness comes from…
We have to admit that:
1. Salespeople are terrified that the client will say “NO” at the last minute, or feel disrespected and act accordingly, so they are loathe to “upset the relationship” by not saying “yes” to random ideas from the client… they’re also loathe to “scare the programmers” so they tend to try to filter info… often leaving out certain details but emphasizing others, often based on the emotional appeal of those items to the client, not knowing the interrelatedness of those items to the invisible tentacles of infrastructure the programmer is building.. and why should we expect them to know that part?!?
2. Developers are terrified that assumptions are wrong, that we’re making a submarine when we really should be making an airplane, that we’re going down the wrong road entirely… We often are guilty of trying to make things seem simpler than they really are, because we fear that if we explain all the details we’ll get that blank stare and scare people who have budgetary authority, or somebody will just go and hire 10 more developers at the last minute (nobody reads Brooks anymore) or somebody will suddenly put things on hold and try to switch to a “buy not build” solution, then ask us to customize a car into an elephant by “just adding some legs and a trunk!”
So… rather than ranting, what’s a useful way of trying to fix this?!?
1. Try to be aware that emotional appeals from the clients often are a clue to a not-yet-articulated need that nobody’s paying attention to yet, but that might be the central insight that makes this thing work, if we miss it, we may have a last minute surprise….
2. Be aware that some people can previsualize much better than others, and that many people previsualize differently from the same specs….
3. Don’t let anyone take flexibility for granted, but try not to scare people into inflexibility either
4. Remember that for us, interrelated things are are daily life, for most people, they have no idea how dependant things are on each other… they think in terms of PEOPLE being interdependant, we think in terms of SOFTWARE dependencies…
Dougontour on August 19th, 2009
My favourite part of that article was my agreeing with one of the comments that states how sad it is that it is only developers who will read it ..
How very true the article is, almost so true that it bordered on not being funny. great post :)