Stephen Waterbury wrote: > 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).
I know, it is always a little fuzzy where to draw the line between puritanism and pragmatism. I don't mind getting paid to be the ultimate decider (or at least the presenter of all the choices). > Happy New Year, Paul and Ed -- hope to see you at PyCon! :) Happy New Year too, Stephen! Glad to know you'll be attending PyCon and I look forward to seeing you there. Paul _______________________________________________ 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]
