Paul G. Allen wrote:
Why is it a probability that it will? It sounds as though you're saying that because everyone else does it, then it must be the way it has to be done, despite any other factors.
Nope. I am saying that due to various factors (political issues, customer changes, market shifts) most projects will fail.
The failure/success of projects often has very little to do with programming language choice.
I certainly hope that's not what is taught in school. Though, to look at the corporate decisions that are made today, I fear it is.
School isn't relevant. It's what is taught on the job.
Which is why many poor decisions are made. There is a often a difference between making the right decision and making the one that saves your ass. I've found, in every case, that my ass is covered by making an informed decision instead of making the decision that might appear to avoid blame because it's what everyone else would do.
Then you have been fortunate. Quite often the right decision gets you your ass handed to you on a platter.
For the first project, it was canned and given to someone else to finish using a more mainstream set of technology. Well, it is still not finished and does not work. My original version works fine, and we will be moving back to it soon. Initially I was put at fault for it not working, but because I made the informed decision (not just one to remove blame from myself), it was found that I had made the correct choice in the first place. My ass was covered.
That's nice. Most of the time it just gets canned, blame apportioned, and disappears.
You got lucky that it was important enough to revisit and that politcal black mark overturned.
For the second project, it works far better than the previous version ever did. My ass is covered again.
"Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan." Successful projects need no defending. -a -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
