Linked by Yamin on Wed 9th Sep 2009 16:17 UTC
I've been developing software for quite a few years. One of the issues that seems to come up again and again in my work is this concept of design and implementation. I recall it being a significant part of my education at the University of Waterloo's Computer Engineering program as well. The message was always the same. Never write code first. First you must design software by writing a design document, flow charts, pseudo-code, timing charts... then it's merely a trivial matter of implementing it. Make note of the attitude here given towards implementing. The real work is in the design, and it's just a trivial matter of implementing it. It sounds so simple doesn't it? Now, how often does this work out in real life?
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Member since:
2006-03-18
To a certain extent the problems this article mentions are insoluble.
In my experience your best defense is to keep your projects modular and have an incremental design approach. I am not promoting Agile, but the absolute worst thing you can do is set out to create one massive monolithic project that only gets released to users as a single block. Witness the Netscape rewrite.
It is *extremely* important to get something out there, and to get users using it. They will find bugs. They will direct new features, they will stop you from wasting your time designing stuff nobody wants.
The more you tolerate imperfection (within limits of course) and an incremental release cycle, the more likely you are to have a successful product.