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I'm Sure It Will Only Take You A Few Days To Code

danshipper.com

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Re: I'm Sure It Will Only Take You A Few Days To Code

#61

Post by kamaal »

keithpeter wrote: post #57
kamaal wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can/have built in some amazing stuff over weekends. But generally the requirements for that are, and in no specific order. 1. I must be in a flow. 2. I am using a technology very familar, so I know the tools and many things. 3. I am doing something new. Not maintaining some ones code or interacting with an external team. 4. No disturbances and other office distractions like office emails. Building new things are di…

Mark Bernstein is recoding a program called StorySpace which dates from 1980s?. He is blogging about it. Day 6 will give a flavour http://www.markbernstein.org/Mar12/Day6.html He is working on a familiar design, and knows the old code. He is recoding in newer tools.

Look Mate, By no means Am I downplaying anybody's accomplishments nor am I trying to say that anything can be built quickly.

Rome was not built in a day. Neither was Git as we know now. But given a narrow set of requirements you can get a prototype out pretty quickly. Especially today when so many reusable things are available. Linus coded up a distributed vcs(Not with all the feature we know now today) sufficient enough to host itself on a weekend.

Its also depends on the Individual. Some people can sit for long hours at a stretch and focus on problems till something worthwhile comes out. Others can only do little per day.

In this case it looks like a rewrite and rewrites are by no means doing something new. By now he would have had a perfect idea of what he needs to do in the entirety so he would be writing per that design one thing at a time. That is totally different that writing a self hosted vcs from scratch on weekend and then iterating and adding features over years.

Re: I'm Sure It Will Only Take You A Few Days To Code

#62

Post by kamaal »

lusr wrote: post #45
edw519 wrote: post #19

The Lifecycle of a Project Manager: Phase I: (Idealism) Treat building software like building a bridge. Analysis --> Design --> Development --> Testing --> Implementation. Phase II: (Pragmatism) Realize that Phase I doesn't work. Try to figure out why. Decide that the weak link is Analysis, i.e. we're no good at estimating and hitting deadlines because we never have good enough specs. Devote your life to the art and…

Phase 0 (Big Corporate IT): PM is given deadline by business, goes through song and dance of negotiating deliverables (without any analysis being performed or developers consulted for estimates), is forced to start work with a small team of internal people outside of the business area not resourced to any projects currently, but who've coded a few lines of VB so can probably do a web application scaling for 5,000 use…

They're the "responsibility buffer" - the guys you get to blame and fire rather than the actual executive who initiated the project and failed to provide real support and leadership.

Sorry I disagree with this. I haven't seen Senior Execs getting fired. In fact its almost always the other way round. The Execs take credit for nearly all success even if they don't move a finger to make it happen. It happens so often Excellence awards and cash rewards go to executives 'for showing leadership and successfully leading team to success'.

If things go wrong its always 'Programmers didn't do their job properly so what can one exec do?'

Re: I'm Sure It Will Only Take You A Few Days To Code

#64

Post by Kesty »

jgamman wrote: post #13

so reverse the question - "why does programming small things take so long?" (assuming x, y and z were relatively standard). is there a niche in this somewhere that maybe some % of the guru class should be focusing on 'making typical, trivial'? ie, we found 70% of websites include these features - download this template, push run and you have a website running. change text on front page manually might actually be good…

Because:

99% of the time what the client want is "similar" to the other features there are already out there not "exactly the same".

100% of the time they want something that isn't on the standard template that is a huge pain to work into the template you choose from, while it may be alot easier and faster to do it form scratch.

120% of the time the update of the template you choose will break your modification and you have to choose between having a non secure website or fix your modifications (every time)

Template and CMS only work if you know what you are doing and you understand that you are compromising your ideas to fit into the Template/CMS you choose.

Re: I'm Sure It Will Only Take You A Few Days To Code

#65

Post by jvdongen »

jarrettcoggin wrote: post #22
dshipper wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely but I think there are two things that make software slightly unique from any piece of art: 1. We have a cultural context that tells us how hard it is to produce something like a song, or a painting. There's a reverence for it. And so people tend to back off of their estimations for the amount of time required to produce it. 2. Software isn't physical. You can hold a big book in your hand say CRAP!…

And one of the things that throws some software estimates out the window is when a developer/programmer gets in the zone. There have been times I've hammered out a problem that I had spent days on in a few hours when the inspiration/flow/etc. hit. Something I would have guessed would have taken me a few days more, I end up hammering out in 3 hours. And when you pull these kinds of tricks... People think you can do it…

Easy way out - if you estimated 3 days and it turns out to be 3 hours ... simply sit on it for 2 more days ;-)

Re: I'm Sure It Will Only Take You A Few Days To Code

#66

Post by sirmarksalot »

ojbyrne wrote: post #8

A thought that occurred to me - another metric we use in the real word would be what I'm calling "solidness" or "weight." I.e. if you see a house and a similarly sized tent, the apparent difference we see between the two is weight - we can probably pick up the tent and walk away with it. In a sense, that's a useful way to describe software to non-technical users. We can throw something quick and dirty together, but i…

Yeah, let's just go with the quick and easy version. It's really all we need anyway, I mean it's not like we're going to release it as a product to the public. We just need a demo for the boss right now.

Why is that thing not working? I thought we finished it three months ago!

Re: I'm Sure It Will Only Take You A Few Days To Code

#67

Post by captobvious »

hkmurakami wrote: post #12

Disclosure: I am currently a software PM I actually think that the same principles apply to _any_ form of creative activity. Let's say I'm going to write a 300 page book. I can take my typical wpm speed, do some math on it, and say that it will take me X hours to do this. A book, on the surface, should fit into the "size and speed" heuristic. But of course, this is nowhere near the case. No decent piece of writing ev…

This reminds me on what Zed Shaw said in The ACL is Dead, when he compared programming to publishing magazines. Lots of people collaborating in creative tasks aiming for a deadline.

How does magazines manage to work deadline driven and still be able to produce good creative work?

Re: I'm Sure It Will Only Take You A Few Days To Code

#68

Post by doktrin »

kamaal wrote: post #62
lusr wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phase 0 (Big Corporate IT): PM is given deadline by business, goes through song and dance of negotiating deliverables (without any analysis being performed or developers consulted for estimates), is forced to start work with a small team of internal people outside of the business area not resourced to any projects currently, but who've coded a few lines of VB so can probably do a web application scaling for 5,000 use…

They're the "responsibility buffer" - the guys you get to blame and fire rather than the actual executive who initiated the project and failed to provide real support and leadership. Sorry I disagree with this. I haven't seen Senior Execs getting fired. In fact its almost always the other way round. The Execs take credit for nearly all success even if they don't move a finger to make it happen. It happens so often Ex…

I think you may have misread the parent. The "responsibility buffer" he was referring to are PMs (Project Managers), who are not senior execs.

Edited : PMs, by nature of their (typically) limited skill-set and solidly middle-managerial roles are highly expendable.

Re: I'm Sure It Will Only Take You A Few Days To Code

#70

Post by marbletiles »

edw519 wrote: post #19

The Lifecycle of a Project Manager: Phase I: (Idealism) Treat building software like building a bridge. Analysis --> Design --> Development --> Testing --> Implementation. Phase II: (Pragmatism) Realize that Phase I doesn't work. Try to figure out why. Decide that the weak link is Analysis, i.e. we're no good at estimating and hitting deadlines because we never have good enough specs. Devote your life to the art and…

Then there are those who care very much how pretty the deliverable is (Eg Apple) but who also hit their deadlines. How? It's not via Phase IV as stated.
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