Well, I believe that one need not think of everything ahead of time. The FNA application surely didn't.
The design principle is to code for the general case. Do not make constraints as a way of life. Then there is the overwhelming tendency of software engineers to be exceedingly egocentric. Later, when this tendency is recognized as restrictive, we hear the "can't think of everything" chorus. The enlightened path is to design for the general case, and to spend most of the effort taking care to be sure that "THE PROBLEM" has been identified and well characterized. It is not so much thinking of everything. Instead, it is solving the correct problem. The early DHCP Pharmacy application was a glorified label generator. The problem we needed to solve was how to create software that would facilitate the work processes of the pharmacy business. (...in an open way of course.) > From: Gregory Woodhouse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Reply-To: [email protected] > Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 09:39:34 -0700 > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Hardhats-members] Data dictionary question... > > A "normal application" is one that does the kind of thing "I" thought > it might need to do. You're right that it is a basic rule that no one > can ever think of everything ahead of time. And -- to step on a > personal soap box of mine -- maybe some day we'll stop developing > software as if though we had thought of everything ahead of time. > > === > Gregory Woodhouse > [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... .... ..... ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by the 'Do More With Dual!' webinar happening July 14 at 8am PDT/11am EDT. We invite you to explore the latest in dual core and dual graphics technology at this free one hour event hosted by HP, AMD, and NVIDIA. To register visit http://www.hp.com/go/dualwebinar _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
