Queuing Up Some Rage Imagine that you’re talking to an acquaintance, and you mention that blue is your favorite color. The response comes back: Acquaintance: You’re completely wrong. Red is the best color. How does the rest of this conversation go? If you’re sane… Acquaintance: That’s wrong. Red is the best color. You: Uh, okay……
Cargo Cults and Angry Monkeys If you have never heard the term “Cargo Cult Programming“, it’s an it’s an excellent way to describe blindly following processes without understanding the theory behind them. The term originates from a story about aboriginal islanders during World War II. During the war, cargo planes regularly (and from their perspective,…
Expert Beginner Recap In my last post I introduced the term “Expert Beginner” to describe someone who has capped out in their learning at some sort of local maximum, convinced that the local is global. Expert Beginners are developers who do not understand enough of the big picture to understand that they aren’t actually experts….
Beyond the Dead Sea: When Good Software Groups Go Bad I recently posted what turned out to be a pretty popular post called “How to Keep Your Best Programmers,” in which I described what most skilled programmers tend to want in a job and why they leave if they don’t get it. Today, I’d like…
Don’t try to follow the waterfall model. That’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: there is no waterfall. Waterfall In Practice Today I often see people discuss, argue and debate the best approach or type of approach to software development. Most commonly, this involves a discussion of the merits of iterative and/or agile…
