Re: Development: A Structured Problem Area?

--- "Robert Watson" <robertcwatson-F5Bj5G+ccuY@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Since everything happens much faster these days,
> it should only take a few more years for management
> to realize that spending prodigious amounts of time
> and money on use cases and other specs results in the
> software being written twice -- once by the analyst
> in the form of specs and again by the programmers in
> the actual code.  They will also come to realize that
> a version of "the telephone game" happens here and is
> the source of a lot of the discrepancy between what
> the users thought they communicated and what actually
> gets implemented.

Don't underestimate the determination and wrong-headedness of 
software development managers. I've seen the opposite trend -- much 
MORE emphasis placed on formalisms, siloing, separation of 
responsibilities, and reliance on metrics and documentation that have 
no proven value. It's as if Fred Brooks had never lived. Even 
managers who keep copies of "The Mythical Man-Month" on their 
bookshelf and go around talking about silver bullets will make the 
mistakes documented in the book, over and over.

Doctors are not immune, either. More and more they are forced to fit 
their intuition and experience into insurance forms, and then 
possibly defend their decisions to lawyers who think they can become 
domain experts in a couple of hours -- the ultimate "sheep dip" style 
of education. My own doctor stopped practicing a few years ago 
because he couldn't stand the rules and procedures and CYA forms the 
insurance companies forced on him.

At a stage in my career where I should be working as a manager I 
prefer taking on small projects, where the team consists of me and 
the client. I find not having significant control over the technical 
decisions and no interaction with the customer/user too stressful 
anymore.


Greg Jorgensen
PDXperts LLC - Portland, Oregon USA




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