It’s amazing how much of a dependency there is on individuals writing IT systems. Reminds me of that Dilbert strip: A few weeks ago, I was trying to figure out in what happens when there are multiple promotions. (Our client is a retailer.) I mean, if there’s a phone that costs £100 and there are 2 promotions: 10% off on phones and £10 off on phones. Do you apply the 10% off first and pay £80 or the £10 off and pay £81? ...
Programming theorems. The likelihood of Perl being involved in a system is directly proportional to the length of time the system has been in maintenance. Every 5 minutes you spend writing code in a new language is more useful than 5 hours reading blog posts about how great the language is. Think twice before presuming that CSV is a nice little easy file format. (see Leon)
Facts in Software Engineering People The most important factor in software work is the quality of the programmers. The best programmers are up to 28 times better than the worst programmers. Adding people to a late project makes it later. The working environment has a profound impact on productivity and quality. Tools and Techniques Hype (about tools and techniques) is the plague on the house of software. New tools/techniques cause an initial loss of productivity/quality. Software developers talk a lot about tools, but seldom use them. Estimation ...