Paul McNett wrote: > Ed Leafe wrote: >> I've worked for many clients who made claims like "we will never need >> more than one phone number per customer" or "part numbers will never be more >> than 4 places" or "640K will be enough for anyone". (OK, that last one >> wasn't from one of my clients!). > > It's become a running joke between myself and my principle contact at my main > client. > They keep constraining what I do based on what they think will get the job > done > faster (more cheaply). ... > > I get the job done pretty quickly and it works well. We maintain it and > enhance it > over the years as needs change and business rules flex with the times. ... > > There are many such examples in my client relationships. For this one client, > I make > a point of finding the original email where she says "we'll never need this" > and > replying to it with a wink. But she still never learns. ;)
In fairness to such clients (and to ourselves as well), the delicate balance between efficiency/simplicity/cost-effectiveness and extensibility/flexibility/good architecture is one of the most difficult aspects of software development, and one of the reasons experienced developers are worth their salt -- that indefinable thing called "engineering judgment" has some subtle aspects and comes through hard lessons. It's also one of the reasons why reading/maintaining code is so much harder than developing/writing it in the first place -- which accentuates one of the strengths of Python: *clarity* (of course it's possible to write obfuscated, spaghetti Python code, but Python makes clarity relatively easy). Happy New Year, Paul and Ed -- hope to see you at PyCon! :) Steve _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/dabo-users Searchable Archives: http://leafe.com/archives/search/dabo-users This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/[email protected]
