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So in short: - Hire good people - Use off the shelf tools when it makes sense - Prototype rapidly - Develop systems iteratively
by beckingz 4y ago
So in short:
- Hire good people
- Use off the shelf tools when it makes sense
- Prototype rapidly
- Develop systems iteratively
- gumby 4y agoUsing off the shelf tools was perhaps 50/50 when this was written. For a long time it was common for computers to come with company-specific OSes and programming languages. The high volume of the PC helped change that, but it was not overnight.
- beckingz 4y agoYeah! And the whole thing about fourth generation languages fits in there too: Using a modern high productivity like Python, Ruby, or Javascript will enable faster iteration and software growth. Note: sometimes Rust or another lower level language will be more productive. Tool choice is hard and contextual.
- heisenbit 4y agoHigher productivity tools just shift the definition of what is complex.
- gumby 4y agoWell sure, but that leaves behind a lot of opportunities for people who can’t or won’t pursue the complex cases.
- kaba0 4y agoI always understood it more like using existing libraries when they exists. So platforms with a huge choice of libraries with good support is the rational decision (which may be python, jvm ecosystem or js)
- mrweasel 4y agoDepends on what you mean by "good people". You don't have to hire only from the top 10%, whatever that may mean to you. One of my main lessons from Brooks was always to put people in the roles that they are best suited for. In "The mythical man month" developers are not interchangeable. There are a number of different roles that needs to be filled, and different types of people are required to fill them.