Re: All I Ever Needed To Know About Computer Programming I Learned In Shop Class

I learned that construction is not really something that I do well. I hire contractors.

I guess, this is the key to understanding different situations. There are people that are good at one thing, and there are others that are good at other things. In ideal situation, to get something done one should assemble right people to do parts of work. Now, the question is, how often do we have "ideal" situations? Personally, I'm still looking for one. In real life, finding someone who will do reasonable planning within reasonable time and reasonable cost also requires to be good "finder". That is why, I guess, in real life people are trying to find workarounds for the "proper" way you have described. The way is indeed proper, but very often not applicable. IMHO.

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Re^2: All I Ever Needed To Know About Computer Programming I Learned In Shop Class
by eighty-one (Curate) on Dec 08, 2010 at 15:07 UTC

I've encountered lots of reasonable people willing to do a good job that's well-planned, in a reasonable amount of time, at a reasonable cost.

The trouble seems to come from marketing and management people who promise customers 16,000 square foot palaces, then allocate four guys in three months with a budget of $200,000. They always seem to outrank the reasonable people, so unreasonable demands get made and the project is doomed to failure from the start. Six months later the team size has doubled, the budget has tripled, and we have a deliverable that most of the team is ashamed to have been involved with.

At least that's been what I've seen - the people in charge are either non-technical and have no idea what they're asking for and no knowledge that would let them figure what the proper time and resource allocations should be, or they're so worried about pressure from management that they make commitments that they know are probably not reasonably possible, or marketing promises the customer a gold-plated Rolls-Royce at a Hyundai price just to make the sale and the technical people get stuck trying to deliver (and get blamed if they can't).

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