Salon's Scott Rosenberg explains why even small-scale programming projects can take years to complete, one programmer is often better than two, and the meaning of "Rosenberg's Law."
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Member since:2005-07-18
(4) When a house is done, it's done. You don't make constant changes to an undocumented project.
Houses are *never* done. There's always repainting to be done, roofing to be re-done, mold growing somewhere, etc... They are a perfect example of a "living" project. In fact, one of my absolute favorite houses is my uncle's which is now more than twice it's original size, because of all the additions he has done. BTW, this man is not a trained architect OR builder. He is an artist who happens to have the capability of reading up on the building codes and still somehow putting his vision to reality.
(5) A house is a physical thing. You can look at it, and see how things work.
Yes, but a home is comprised of physical and non-physical things. Taken that way, there are definitely some houses that "work" and some that don't, with no good obvious explanation why.
(6) Home constuction uses long established standards. The electical outlet in you home would have looked about the same in the 1930s.
Have you ever owned a house? They can be a surprisingly painful source of bugs, especially if you get infested with lice, chiggers, or bedbugs... uhh I mean... OK, seriously, aside from insects, houses can have plenty of mechanical problems due to bad design, non-standard implementations, etc... (I am now trying to replace kitchen cabinet doors and bathroom countertops, and finding that no manufacturer makes these sizes, so I have to have them custom-made by a local Mica worker).
(7) Anybody who does anything in the building of a home must be licensed to do so: plumbers, electricians, roofers, etc. Can not be self-trained hacks who do thing their own way.
Bwwahahaha... gasp... sorry... the more you say, the more I realize that software is a *lot* like a house. This analogy's getting good. Yes, I suppose officially, point 7 is officially correct, for newer housing developments in modern wealthier countries (although you find a lot of hacks even there), but if you take a cross-sampling of houses around the world, you would find an amazing number of hacks and non-standard implementations. Yet somehow, people still manage to live in them. Which is also what people somehow still manage to do with software: live with it.
...
(yes, tongue-in-cheek, but only somewhat)
Member since:
2005-12-31
To continue the analogy:
(4) When a house is done, it's done. You don't make constant changes to an undocumented project.
(5) A house is a physical thing. You can look at it, and see how things work.
(6) Home constuction uses long established standards. The electical outlet in you home would have looked about the same in the 1930s.
(7) Anybody who does anything in the building of a home must be licensed to do so: plumbers, electricians, roofers, etc. Can not be self-trained hacks who do thing their own way.