Wednesday, May 21, 2003

The Software Construction Analogy is Broken I always enjoy finding an article that confirms some of my vague suspicions. This article attempts to describe the problems inherent in assuming that constructing a building is like constructing a software package. kuro5hin: “Our decades of trying to use [the construction analogy] have not taken us very far considering the incredibly bright minds that have been working on it. Instead we have to explicitly recognize the true attributes of software creation: its incredible flexibility, its odd economics, and the remarkable human talents required to create it.” I was always uncomfortable with the "building a house" metaphor that we used for our own software engineering training classes. The metaphor inhibited any thoughts about ordering of development or of packaging and building the highest risk item first (if the roof is the hardest thing on the house it's a bit tough to do it first). It's nice to see that other practitioners feel the same. [Ranchero] 1:45:04 PM

© Copyright 2003 Peter Loats. Last update: 5/21/03; 1:46:54 PM.