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Why Software Development is Different ...

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Re: Why Software Development is Different ...

#11

Post by hello_moto »

slantyyz wrote: post #7
greenlblue wrote: post #5

Elitist crap. What does he mean by significant contribution? Even the best developers need some help with any significant project because nobody develops code in a vacuum and the best projects tend to be used by many people with varying skill sets who over time tend to add their own contributions to the code.

Something that still resonates with me from university (which is pre-www) is a quote from one of my most cynical professors: Most people who call themselves experts at something usually just read a couple of articles more than the next guy. These days, you just have to write a blog entry with a slightly more authoritative tone than the next guy.

That's usually what happened in this day and age isn't it?

One of your most vocal developers read a blog or an article and tomorrow he'll implement the new core threading part of the system because the idea was just damn good and suddenly y'all lose customers :) and he'll get the pat in the back.

Re: Why Software Development is Different ...

#12

Post by slantyyz »

hello_moto wrote: post #11
slantyyz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something that still resonates with me from university (which is pre-www) is a quote from one of my most cynical professors: Most people who call themselves experts at something usually just read a couple of articles more than the next guy. These days, you just have to write a blog entry with a slightly more authoritative tone than the next guy.

That's usually what happened in this day and age isn't it? One of your most vocal developers read a blog or an article and tomorrow he'll implement the new core threading part of the system because the idea was just damn good and suddenly y'all lose customers :) and he'll get the pat in the back.

That totally sounds like a dev I used to work with.

Re: Why Software Development is Different ...

#13

Post by hello_moto »

slantyyz wrote: post #6
robryan wrote: post #3

I get where the first point is coming from in that the best developer can be many times more productive than an average one but that doesn't mean the average one can't make a contribution. Many great programs have come from people that have admitted that they don't find themselves to be the best programmers but picked a goal and worked hard towards it.

Reading his points, I wonder how much experience he has and what the scope of his experience is. My experience is that if you've got multidisciplinary teams populated with reasonable people who have a good grasp on real world constraints (usually a delicate balance of compromises between scope, quality, time and money), all of his four points break down. On the measurement point: While I'm sure some of the more cluel…

That's because half-decent dev shop thought that they're full of good developers and their best developers managed to convince the management that measurement and metrics suck, just because software development is different!

Really, we need some kind of measurements or metrics. Otherwise, how else do we know we're progressing or improving or at least not sucking more.

I agree that metrics is hard to do and easy to game. That's why don't put a specific number or targets. And also don't tight metrics with employee performance. Put it on team's performance (still not perfect, but I'm sure it's better).

One example of metric that probably might have made sense is that if your shop is doing Agile (code review, code coverage, unit-test, # of bugs etc.) is to make sure that these numbers don't go down in every iteration. Make sure these numbers either stay the same or go up (in the case of improvements or new development). If the numbers go down for 2 consecutive iteration, someone or some team doesn't care about quality. Track improvements, not specific number.

Side note: I would suggest people to read Standish Group Chaos Report to understand how bad our industry was and how far have we improved over the years.

Re: Why Software Development is Different ...

#14

Post by ant5 »

greenlblue wrote: post #5

Elitist crap. What does he mean by significant contribution? Even the best developers need some help with any significant project because nobody develops code in a vacuum and the best projects tend to be used by many people with varying skill sets who over time tend to add their own contributions to the code.

It reads like a justification for arrogant cowboy programming, eg: Developers that have to spend a long time cleaning up after you are just the mediocre ones that can't keep up.

Re: Why Software Development is Different ...

#16

Post by gphil »

zb wrote: post #9

It's hard to take seriously an article about how software development is different when it neglects to mention what exactly it is allegedly different from .

Yeah I agree. Additionally, I think that the points in the article are generalities that are applicable to basically anything.

Re: Why Software Development is Different ...

#18

Post by slantyyz »

hello_moto wrote: post #13
slantyyz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading his points, I wonder how much experience he has and what the scope of his experience is. My experience is that if you've got multidisciplinary teams populated with reasonable people who have a good grasp on real world constraints (usually a delicate balance of compromises between scope, quality, time and money), all of his four points break down. On the measurement point: While I'm sure some of the more cluel…

That's because half-decent dev shop thought that they're full of good developers and their best developers managed to convince the management that measurement and metrics suck, just because software development is different! Really, we need some kind of measurements or metrics. Otherwise, how else do we know we're progressing or improving or at least not sucking more. I agree that metrics is hard to do and easy to ga…

"metrics are are hard to do and easy to game"

That is the painful truth with employee measurement in general (hm, perhaps another knock against software dev being different). I would still say that the junk "objective" metrics provided in the original article aren't generally used in any competent dev shop.

Re: Why Software Development is Different ...

#19

Post by slantyyz »

reynolds wrote: post #15
zb wrote: post #9

It's hard to take seriously an article about how software development is different when it neglects to mention what exactly it is allegedly different from .

The author mentions manufacturing processes in the article.

Only in relation to one bullet point out of four, requirements gathering.

That particular bullet point is perhaps the most disturbing flaw in the article, I might add. All the projects that I've seen go off the rails are the results of -poor- requirements gathering.

Granted, poor requirements gathering seems to be the rule more than the exception, I have worked on plenty of projects that had excellent requirements that went extremely well, even with the usual set of unexpected scope changes.

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