3 ms·
Microsoft has an idea like this - with the same surgical analogy. Sometime during the MS Word initial development process they tried it out - and the "surgeons
by lifeisstillgood 8y ago
Microsoft has an idea like this - with the same surgical analogy. Sometime during the MS Word initial development process they tried it out - and the "surgeons" loved the idea, but everyone else hated it - especially as the half fleshed out ideas from the surgeons turned out poor or wrong.
I think the skill differences between individual contributors are never as great as you think.
cf "Software Heroes" book - has a wireframe cowboy hat in the front cover. v good
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- aaronbrethorst 8y agoJoel Spolsky talks a little about this: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/10/04/painless-functional-specifications-part-3-but-how/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/10/04/painless-functiona...
- revvx 8y agoMicrosoft's idea was very different from what Brooks describes in his book. Microsoft approach was more about having senior programmers telling juniors what and how to do their job, aka micromanagement. Brooks is about having programmers actually coding (and documenting), and have other people handling and other important tasks such as clerical non-programming tasks, developing tools, language research, version management, doing adversarial testing, helping with documentation, etc. Some of the tasks he describe are obsolete these days, but the book is from the early 70s. According to him, doing that "relieves programmers of clerical chores, systematizes and ensures proper performance of those oft neglected chores, and enhances the team's most valuable asset — its work-product".