4 ms·

Perhaps our collective sensibilities have evolved so much since 2001 so that this article is no longer novel.

hubb 17y ago
yeah, really. i'm not a fan of submissions like that aren't at least tagged with the date. sometimes it's not until the fifth paragraph when you read something suspect like 'dotcoms bursting... high-end c++ gui programming.. the hell?' that you realize you're reading a fossile.
- swombat 17y ago
  Sorry.. I didn't even realise it was from 2001 until now... I've updated the title now!
  - ShabbyDoo 17y ago
    I actually like the article but simply wonder if, in the context of 2001, it was not widely believed that organizations like Accenture were incapable of building wonderful software. Reading this is kind of like reading an article from the 1950's arguing that black people ought to have the same rights as whites. The premise is still valid, but the doubt which justified the article's existence has since been erased.
deleted 17y ago
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bpyne 17y ago
The specific manifestation of the problem may not be novel, but the underlying problem persists. It's the people, process, technology argument. McDonald's is heavy on process and technology but have unskilled labor - as far as restaurant work is concerned. An article I read in the early 2K's summed up several software engineering studies about the importance of people, process, and technology to software projects. The conclusion, overwhelmingly, was that successful projects had a cohesive team of very good developers. In less successful and completely failed projects, developers were not carefully chosen and time was not allocated to develop a sense of team. Software methodology and technology (equipment, tools, etc.) varied widely and was not deemed as critical to success. The conclusion was that people were 60% of the success of a project while process and technology were 20% each. I'll try to find a link to the article. It would have been around 2001 in either IEEE's Computer, CACM, Queue, or Dr. Dobb's.

hubb 17y ago

yeah, really. i'm not a fan of submissions like that aren't at least tagged with the date. sometimes it's not until the fifth paragraph when you read something suspect like 'dotcoms bursting... high-end c++ gui programming.. the hell?' that you realize you're reading a fossile.

swombat 17y ago
Sorry.. I didn't even realise it was from 2001 until now... I've updated the title now!
- ShabbyDoo 17y ago
  I actually like the article but simply wonder if, in the context of 2001, it was not widely believed that organizations like Accenture were incapable of building wonderful software. Reading this is kind of like reading an article from the 1950's arguing that black people ought to have the same rights as whites. The premise is still valid, but the doubt which justified the article's existence has since been erased.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

bpyne 17y ago

The specific manifestation of the problem may not be novel, but the underlying problem persists. It's the people, process, technology argument. McDonald's is heavy on process and technology but have unskilled labor - as far as restaurant work is concerned. An article I read in the early 2K's summed up several software engineering studies about the importance of people, process, and technology to software projects. The conclusion, overwhelmingly, was that successful projects had a cohesive team of very good developers. In less successful and completely failed projects, developers were not carefully chosen and time was not allocated to develop a sense of team. Software methodology and technology (equipment, tools, etc.) varied widely and was not deemed as critical to success. The conclusion was that people were 60% of the success of a project while process and technology were 20% each. I'll try to find a link to the article. It would have been around 2001 in either IEEE's Computer, CACM, Queue, or Dr. Dobb's.