Some interesting lessons for Software Development can be obtained form outside our field. I was reminded of this while reading a running blog that looked at what lessons could be gained from outside of the field of running coaching…
Rules of Everything
- When something is new or gains popularity, it is overemphasized until it eventually falls into it’s rightful place. How long that process takes varies greatly.
- Research is only as good as the measurement being used is.
- We overemphasize the importance of what we can measure and what we already know, ignoring that which we can not measure and know little about.
- We think in absolutes and either/ors instead of the spectrum that is really present.
…
Point 1. helps explain a lot of the original hype/hope surrounding the agile approaches to software development.
Lessons from outside the running world
We go through a cycle of forgetting and remembering what’s been done before us. You see this in the reintroduction or rememphasis in certain training methods in the coaching world. That’s why it is incredibly important to know your history. And if you can, know your history from a primary source where you attempt to look at it through their eyes during that time period. For example, going back and reading Lydiard’s original work gives a greater appreciation of what he was trying to do, then reading someones summary now, 50 years later. We lose a little bit of the original message.
Sometimes there is useful information available from looking back at what worked in the past. Although many on the software field seem to try to forget the past, the pioneers in the field learned a lot, some of which is still applicable to our present circumstances.
Don’t normally link to Dave winer, but his The bosses do everything better is priceless…
When he looked at the code he must have been shocked to find something complex and intricate. Why isn’t the source code as simple as the software? Hah. When you figure that out let me know.
All too often in software development I hear the comment that there must be a “simpler/easier way.”
Unfortunately, although sometimes simple solutions are workable, in most cases the simplest solution is not workable. Or rather the simple solution would be workable in some circumstances, but not for the current project becasue of some fairly obvious deficiencies in the simple solution.
Seems strange to be linking to an article in Slate …
The mainstream media thrives on simple solutions. It has no idea whatsoever of how to report on a story that isn’t about easy fixes so much as it is about anguished human frustration and fear. The media prides itself on its ability to tell you how to clear your clutter, regrout your shower, or purge your closet of anything that makes you look fat—in 24 minutes or less. It is bound to be flummoxed by a protest that offers up no happy endings.
Definitely no easy fixes when three slow moving changes are coming together - concentration of wealth, climate change and peak oil – it is as if we are running into the Limits to Growth
From On Bullshit by Harry G Frankfurt:
In the old days, craftsmen did not cut corners, They worked carefully, and they took care with every aspect of their work. Every part of the product was considered, and each was designed and made to be exactly as it should be. These craftsmen did not relax their thoughtful self-discipline even with respect to features of their work that would ordinarily not be visible. Although no one would notice if those features were not quite right, the craftsmen would be bothered by their consciences. So nothing was swept under the rug. [pp 20-21]
Some interesting parallels to Software Craftsmanship in Shop Class as Soulcraft. Focus is on working in the so called craft trades, specifically as Electrician and Motorcycle Mechanic.
Parallels are uncanny in the way that both books address Scientific Management, but Soulcraft found a very interesting quote from one of Ford’s biographers
So great was labor’s distaste for the new machine system that toward the close of 1913 every time the company wanted to add 100 men to its factory personnel, it was necessary to hire 963. (pg 42)
Small wonder then that Ford was forced to double the wages of the factory staff in order to retain workers. Of course this has since been spun as Ford wanting the workers to be able to afford the cars they were making, but it sure seems like it was a defensive move based on turnover.
Now that the last shuttle launch has taken place, and with no replacement yet available, it is sobering to think that some bits of infrastructure are even older than the Space Shuttle.
Car and Driver have a report on the state of the interstate highway system and it does not sound good.
Now massive sections of the interstate, including almost all of them near major cities, have reached the end of their useful life; the interstates were designed to last 20 or 30 years, but now some areas are pushing 50 years and handling far more traffic than their planners anticipated. But as we reach into our wallets, we run into our generation’s big dilemma: We’re nearly broke.
In many ways the interstates are like the space shuttle. The design lifetime has been known for a long time, but the political will to put in the necessary investment to get a replacement available in time was not there. While the lack of a space shuttle is not critical, it does have major implications for the International Space Station, which can now only be reached by Soyuz rockets that were designed even earlier than the space shuttle.
Crumbling interstates and bridges are a much bigger concern since they affect how well the overall economy runs. Lose a major bridge as the Car and Driver report highlights, and suddenly life in a city grinds to a halt as people have to find alternative routes.
- What other bits of our infrastructure are aging and soon going to need replacement?
- Have we done the necessary investment to be able to build the replacements in time?
Clearing up the climate debate
The Rolling Stone piece Climate of Denial
Not climate, but about useful questions for a different denial community from PZ Myers
