What does software engineering look like, in practical terms?
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Got it. I see that too. You have swarms of high-schoolers who are only interested in writing games for iOS. But we've had that kind of people in our midst since the beginning. Important systems running on big hardware still run the world. I laugh at people who say the iPhone is replacing the desktop. If anything, I want my desktop system to be even more powerful. My friend just added a 43 inch monitor to his development workstation. I don't see myself sitting in a corner building systems on a 4.5 inch phone. Can you imagine doing AutoCAD drawings of a space station on an iPhone? I can't. Don't get me wrong, those toys are really cool, and I use one myself. But that doesn't take away from the real data processing needs of the world. And the infrastructure that runs those millions of iPhones are not running on little iPhones. They are running on real hardware. Built by real engineers.
If you send me a picture of yourself I'll start building your statue right away. :thumbsup::thumbsup:
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
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Marc Clifton wrote:
how do you practice it in, well, practical terms?
Someone assigns tasks during a sprint.
Marc Clifton wrote:
for those with some level of college degree, did college teach you engineering skills
Schools are there to make sure you become obedient, not to convey knowledge.
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^][](X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett)
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I get the feeling that Marc's post has less to do with software engineering being dead and more to do with the cult of the script kiddies who seem to want to jump onto the latest shiny, rather than applying rigour and discipline to build and maintain systems. Marc has just been through a particularly bruising application of this where a well engineered system has been cast aside to allow the children to write a new Python based one, from scratch, simply because they have the CTO's ear.
This space for rent
You can't blame the "children" for that, they didn't make that decision. The CTO did. And calling them "children" is probably a little patronising, we were all young once.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote:
I personally don't think an app can be properly engineered in an agile environment.
Now that opens a door, actually a chasm, which would make for an interesting discussion. Care to elaborate? :) Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
I believe he meant to say,
I don't think.
and
An app can be properly engineered in an agile environment.
:laugh: :laugh: Oh, I know I've started a war now. Oh well. :-D Disclaimer I'm just kidding around with the "I don't think" thing. Let's keep it light out there people. :) Honestly, if you understand the heart of Agile -- if you would actually read the book by one of the originally creators of the methodology (Amazon.com: Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time eBook: Jeff Sutherland, Jj Sutherland: Kindle Store[^] ) -- I believe you would find that Agile is really the _ONLY_ way that work gets done. Not only in software development but in other things too. I use the heart of Agile in everything I do. What is the heart? 1. Make a (basic) plan of attack for your project 2. implement the steps in the plan 3. alter the parts of your plan which don't work for reality 4. iterate through 2 to 3 until you've created your product. We who create real things know that plans are not perfect but you have to have one. Methodologies are often over-hyped best practices that people really use and authors have turned into books. However, the real Agile process is quite interesting. But companies (almost) always corrupt it.
My book, Launch Your Android App, is available at Amazon.com.
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I'm actually thinking of writing an article entitled "Software Engineering is Dead", but I want to ask y'all, when you think of software engineering, how do you practice it in, well, practical terms? Anything from doing detail design analysis, prototypes (that don't turn into production code), design patterns, high level architectures like messaging, pub/sub, modular, service oriented, async, etc., all are fair game for what, in practice, "engineering" looks like. (Note how I snuck the idea of "high level architecture" into the idea of "engineering".) I'm also curious, for those with some level of college degree, did college teach you engineering skills, or did you learn them yourself or on the job? Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
As a member of the BCS over here in the UK I remember attending a seminar from a software engineer from the Ministry of Defence who was involved in the development of avionics and navigation software for their jets. And it was eye opening exercise. I had no idea development teams actually used things like Z (the formal programming language) in practice. The level of discipline was far beyond anything I had encountered in real life. Their procedures were extremely disciplined. The key point is that engineering is a set of rigorous disciplines used to build applications. The level to which we employ these disciplines depends on the goals, costs and risks. It takes time, effort, cost and skill to build these sorts of systems. You therefore need to weigh these against the goals. Obviously in avionics, a software bug can lead to a fatality so higher levels of engineering discipline are required than for say a web site. I graduated with a degree in Computer Studies nearly two decades ago where I was taught software design, Z, formal methods, computational mathematics, data structures etc. All of these can be thought of as engineering disciplines.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
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I'm actually thinking of writing an article entitled "Software Engineering is Dead", but I want to ask y'all, when you think of software engineering, how do you practice it in, well, practical terms? Anything from doing detail design analysis, prototypes (that don't turn into production code), design patterns, high level architectures like messaging, pub/sub, modular, service oriented, async, etc., all are fair game for what, in practice, "engineering" looks like. (Note how I snuck the idea of "high level architecture" into the idea of "engineering".) I'm also curious, for those with some level of college degree, did college teach you engineering skills, or did you learn them yourself or on the job? Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Also, I would add that a lot of what is portrayed as "software engineering" practice is, in fact, project management. Agile v Waterfall v whatever is all about how you get teams to work together on software and nothing about how you get software to work. Many of our industry failings are human failings - but sadly we persist in trying to find technological solutions for them.
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I'm actually thinking of writing an article entitled "Software Engineering is Dead", but I want to ask y'all, when you think of software engineering, how do you practice it in, well, practical terms? Anything from doing detail design analysis, prototypes (that don't turn into production code), design patterns, high level architectures like messaging, pub/sub, modular, service oriented, async, etc., all are fair game for what, in practice, "engineering" looks like. (Note how I snuck the idea of "high level architecture" into the idea of "engineering".) I'm also curious, for those with some level of college degree, did college teach you engineering skills, or did you learn them yourself or on the job? Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Marc Clifton wrote:
I'm also curious, for those with some level of college degree, did college teach you engineering skills, or did you learn them yourself or on the job?
I only consider 8 or 9 subjects (from over 40) that teached me something that have been really usefull and have been using a while in work life. At the beginning I was trying to learn a lot of stuff and got overwhelmed. Was never happy with my results and eventually got demotivated. After a time and one sommer job as electical monteaur I changed my mind and started paying way more attention to (what others already mentioned) the methodes and less to the concrete contents. I experienced an increase of my confidence and I started to feel good with it. Later on I just learned specifics enough to pass the exam. I don't remember 90% of the formulas and other concrete staff, but give me a problem of the lessons, a book related or the internet and I will be solving it after a while. So as conclusion I would say: The most important lesson I got from college was... to learn how to learn. The rest came with job / life experience.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I'm actually thinking of writing an article entitled "Software Engineering is Dead", but I want to ask y'all, when you think of software engineering, how do you practice it in, well, practical terms? Anything from doing detail design analysis, prototypes (that don't turn into production code), design patterns, high level architectures like messaging, pub/sub, modular, service oriented, async, etc., all are fair game for what, in practice, "engineering" looks like. (Note how I snuck the idea of "high level architecture" into the idea of "engineering".) I'm also curious, for those with some level of college degree, did college teach you engineering skills, or did you learn them yourself or on the job? Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
- Gathering customer requirements - Software Architecture - Support concepts (logging, builtin-help etc.) All that and many more are software engineering, and in some terms even Usability Engineering (at least part of it) could count in as being a part of Software Engineering.
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As a member of the BCS over here in the UK I remember attending a seminar from a software engineer from the Ministry of Defence who was involved in the development of avionics and navigation software for their jets. And it was eye opening exercise. I had no idea development teams actually used things like Z (the formal programming language) in practice. The level of discipline was far beyond anything I had encountered in real life. Their procedures were extremely disciplined. The key point is that engineering is a set of rigorous disciplines used to build applications. The level to which we employ these disciplines depends on the goals, costs and risks. It takes time, effort, cost and skill to build these sorts of systems. You therefore need to weigh these against the goals. Obviously in avionics, a software bug can lead to a fatality so higher levels of engineering discipline are required than for say a web site. I graduated with a degree in Computer Studies nearly two decades ago where I was taught software design, Z, formal methods, computational mathematics, data structures etc. All of these can be thought of as engineering disciplines.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
Great response. Thank you! Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
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The techniques used to build a treehouse* don't work when building a cathedral nor vice versa. The same is true of IT - you need to know what type of a thing you are building before deciding what techniques to use. Sadly in my experience in a very significant percentage of cases that first step is not taken. We decide the techniques to use based on factors external to what we are going to do with them - including external influencers (Gartner &c.) and existing experience. I learnt database design (Codd's laws) and object oriented programming at college. This was a long time ago but I imagine things like MVVM would be in whatever has replaced my course. Sadly I was also taught monolithic system design and it has taken me 2 decades to undo that. * This is not meant to be pejorative - I'm just illustrating the point. Personally I prefer treehouses to cathedrals :-)
Duncan Edwards Jones wrote:
Sadly in my experience in a very significant percentage of cases that first step is not taken.
Indeed, it's what I'm seeing happen -- throw some code together, plug in some open source solutions, assume they work correctly, etc. It's all driven by the "we need to get product out the door now." Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
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Also, I would add that a lot of what is portrayed as "software engineering" practice is, in fact, project management. Agile v Waterfall v whatever is all about how you get teams to work together on software and nothing about how you get software to work. Many of our industry failings are human failings - but sadly we persist in trying to find technological solutions for them.
Duncan Edwards Jones wrote:
a lot of what is portrayed as "software engineering" practice is, in fact, project management. Agile v Waterfall v whatever is all about how you get teams to work together on software and nothing about how you get software to work.
Great point! Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
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Marc Clifton wrote:
I'm also curious, for those with some level of college degree, did college teach you engineering skills, or did you learn them yourself or on the job?
I only consider 8 or 9 subjects (from over 40) that teached me something that have been really usefull and have been using a while in work life. At the beginning I was trying to learn a lot of stuff and got overwhelmed. Was never happy with my results and eventually got demotivated. After a time and one sommer job as electical monteaur I changed my mind and started paying way more attention to (what others already mentioned) the methodes and less to the concrete contents. I experienced an increase of my confidence and I started to feel good with it. Later on I just learned specifics enough to pass the exam. I don't remember 90% of the formulas and other concrete staff, but give me a problem of the lessons, a book related or the internet and I will be solving it after a while. So as conclusion I would say: The most important lesson I got from college was... to learn how to learn. The rest came with job / life experience.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
Nelek wrote:
to learn how to learn. The rest came with job / life experience.
Same here. Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
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Duncan Edwards Jones wrote:
Sadly in my experience in a very significant percentage of cases that first step is not taken.
Indeed, it's what I'm seeing happen -- throw some code together, plug in some open source solutions, assume they work correctly, etc. It's all driven by the "we need to get product out the door now." Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
The cult of "minimum viable product" strikes again. I usually fall back on the argument - "If this were a medicine would you feel confident in taking it yourself? If this were an airline would you fly with it?" (Again - if this is a treehouse type of project then the medicine is a placebo and the airline is a lego toy)
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- Gathering customer requirements - Software Architecture - Support concepts (logging, builtin-help etc.) All that and many more are software engineering, and in some terms even Usability Engineering (at least part of it) could count in as being a part of Software Engineering.
Marco Bertschi (SFC) wrote:
Gathering customer requirements
An often forgotten step.
Marco Bertschi (SFC) wrote:
Software Architecture
But what is that? How do you (specifically you) go about doing that?
Marco Bertschi (SFC) wrote:
Support concepts (logging, builtin-help etc.)
Aye, logging. The architecture that I was using, courtesy of the pub/sub system I wrote, logs to wherever (PaperTrailApp being a favorite) and exceptions are caught and emailed to me (quite fun when that's in place at that get go.)
Marco Bertschi (SFC) wrote:
All that and many more are software engineering, and in some terms even Usability Engineering (at least part of it) could count in as being a part of Software Engineering.
Hmm, Usability Engineering, there's something to think about. What about "Maintainability Engineering" -- writing the code so that other programmers can easily understand it? There seems to be a tension there that I encounter a lot, particularly with junior devs, who really don't understand well enough the language (C#), the framework (.NET), and the architectural decisions that the senior developer (moi) made. Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
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I'm actually thinking of writing an article entitled "Software Engineering is Dead", but I want to ask y'all, when you think of software engineering, how do you practice it in, well, practical terms? Anything from doing detail design analysis, prototypes (that don't turn into production code), design patterns, high level architectures like messaging, pub/sub, modular, service oriented, async, etc., all are fair game for what, in practice, "engineering" looks like. (Note how I snuck the idea of "high level architecture" into the idea of "engineering".) I'm also curious, for those with some level of college degree, did college teach you engineering skills, or did you learn them yourself or on the job? Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Marc Clifton wrote:
how do you practice it in, well, practical terms?
Well basically as you list it up, i go from idea to the lowest block of work / module / codepart. So i start with a big overall architecture, split it up into themed blocks and then reduce those further. I try to fit in patterns and stuff, according to what my product should achieve. Think about security and logging. Make plans and detail all the functions, generate tests and so on. For example i have a big overall (ListOfCustomersProgram), this gets splited into business code (doing the work) dataCode (DBO/Models) and the UI (Usercontrols) and then i split those parts even futher. After connecting the parts i decide where to split into Frameworks / .dll and which parts i can modularize into separate projects. This is just a small part of the whole engineering though :| And that's engineering for me, at least kind of.
Marc Clifton wrote:
I'm also curious, for those with some level of college degree, did college teach you engineering skills, or did you learn them yourself or on the job?
We got the modules SoftwareEngineering 1 and 2 so actually i had 2 semesters on dealing with this things. But i can't remember everything we learned there :)
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Marco Bertschi (SFC) wrote:
Gathering customer requirements
An often forgotten step.
Marco Bertschi (SFC) wrote:
Software Architecture
But what is that? How do you (specifically you) go about doing that?
Marco Bertschi (SFC) wrote:
Support concepts (logging, builtin-help etc.)
Aye, logging. The architecture that I was using, courtesy of the pub/sub system I wrote, logs to wherever (PaperTrailApp being a favorite) and exceptions are caught and emailed to me (quite fun when that's in place at that get go.)
Marco Bertschi (SFC) wrote:
All that and many more are software engineering, and in some terms even Usability Engineering (at least part of it) could count in as being a part of Software Engineering.
Hmm, Usability Engineering, there's something to think about. What about "Maintainability Engineering" -- writing the code so that other programmers can easily understand it? There seems to be a tension there that I encounter a lot, particularly with junior devs, who really don't understand well enough the language (C#), the framework (.NET), and the architectural decisions that the senior developer (moi) made. Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Marc Clifton wrote:
here seems to be a tension there that I encounter a lot, particularly with junior devs, who really don't understand well enough the language (C#), the framework (.NET), and the architectural decisions that the senior developer (moi) made.
They will eventually get the point and learn from it. Last job we were 3 seniors at the end, one was often abroad, the other has no patience, so I got the privilege of teaching the newbies. My first 3 days were just about... naming, commenting, documentation and my list of best practices. Then we got into theoretical aspects of the programing enviroment and the PLC intern structure. Then started with real program examples (my biggest project and the software I was most proud of), I really doubt any of the ones I teached had been confronted to something more exhaustive than that. They all flipped out the first month, but at the end (when I quitted the firm) all came to me and told me different variations of "thanks for kicking my ass at the beginning, it later made my life easier"
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I'm actually thinking of writing an article entitled "Software Engineering is Dead", but I want to ask y'all, when you think of software engineering, how do you practice it in, well, practical terms? Anything from doing detail design analysis, prototypes (that don't turn into production code), design patterns, high level architectures like messaging, pub/sub, modular, service oriented, async, etc., all are fair game for what, in practice, "engineering" looks like. (Note how I snuck the idea of "high level architecture" into the idea of "engineering".) I'm also curious, for those with some level of college degree, did college teach you engineering skills, or did you learn them yourself or on the job? Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
Since developers have no Engineering certifications, it really comes down to how each of us individually define "Software Engineering". For me, even though my job title says "Engineer" and I have 20+ years of experience, I don't consider myself a Software Engineer. Here's the hierarchy I have in my mind: Engineer = Missile Guidance, HFT, Embedded Medical Devices, etc... Developer = LOB applications (order entry, accounting, etc...) <- This is where I am Coder (or Script Kiddie if you prefer) = "Apps" However, having said that, for every missile guidance system out there, there's thousands of "apps". So it makes perfect market-based sense that for every missile guidance Engineer there would be thousands of app Coders.
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Since developers have no Engineering certifications, it really comes down to how each of us individually define "Software Engineering". For me, even though my job title says "Engineer" and I have 20+ years of experience, I don't consider myself a Software Engineer. Here's the hierarchy I have in my mind: Engineer = Missile Guidance, HFT, Embedded Medical Devices, etc... Developer = LOB applications (order entry, accounting, etc...) <- This is where I am Coder (or Script Kiddie if you prefer) = "Apps" However, having said that, for every missile guidance system out there, there's thousands of "apps". So it makes perfect market-based sense that for every missile guidance Engineer there would be thousands of app Coders.
Vark111 wrote:
Engineer = Missile Guidance
Hi, I'm Denis and I'm an Engineer. I'd LOVE working for Missile Guidance Systems... but I'm stuck with X-Rays. :sigh:
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP. -- TNCaver When I was six, there were no ones and zeroes - only zeroes. And not all of them worked. -- Ravi Bhavnani
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I'm actually thinking of writing an article entitled "Software Engineering is Dead", but I want to ask y'all, when you think of software engineering, how do you practice it in, well, practical terms? Anything from doing detail design analysis, prototypes (that don't turn into production code), design patterns, high level architectures like messaging, pub/sub, modular, service oriented, async, etc., all are fair game for what, in practice, "engineering" looks like. (Note how I snuck the idea of "high level architecture" into the idea of "engineering".) I'm also curious, for those with some level of college degree, did college teach you engineering skills, or did you learn them yourself or on the job? Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
For greenfield or brownfield projects, a PM or me will create a high-level project plan. After that fun stuff, I’ll create the following: Architecture Diagram, ERD, ETL Migration (if needed), web page topology, if I have that info, and then we’ll start have meetings. If requirements are easy, me or another developer will run with it. If moderate to very difficult, I’ll do a fully dressed use case. I don’t like user stories as they don’t tell me much, though I have worked in a S**** projects. For the UI, I have sat with the customer and drawn out prototypes on the board or paper or even used post-it notes or viseo diagram by email; so they can visualize and get an idea of how the functionality will work. 15 years ago, undergraduate studies taught me very little about SE. There seems to be one class where we developed test cases; besides that, nothing. In graduate school 10 years ago, I took several software engineering courses that covered UP/RUP, UML, and software development methodologies; we even touched on Agile, Scrum, Crystal, and Lean. I have utilized some RUP tools such as Sequence diagrams and System Sequence diagrams. I see a lot of RUP in today’s tech, just reworded or reworked. I have noticed over the years that many of the best coders or IT people have neglected the software engineering aspect and many times they have a BS to no education.
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I personally don't think an app can be properly engineered in an agile environment. I'm self taught (aka, the Outlaw Programmer School of Software Development).
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013And why do you have that opinion about an agile environment? What other alternative do you consider an option?