I think we're essentially in agreement. Certainly we have to like what
we do and do it in a very responsible and deliberate manner, and to that end,
perhaps those "perfection attitudes" are good. Skepticism fights for the top
spot on my list, along with pride/hubris and imagination (or something; this is
a really ad-hoc list ;-). I'm loth to call that attitude optimism, because
that could lead to the possibility of errors being ignored, etc.
I think that code simplification (which may produce fewer lines of code
but probably includes SRP or similar) can prevent the creation of "entropous
zones" not only in the code, but more importantly, in our minds.
On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 11:39:28AM -0800, Chris Wheeler wrote:
>
> > It is folly to believe something you have never
> > experienced directly.
>
> I certainly feel that way about some things.
> Sometimes, though, I think a certian amount of folly
> is necessary to generate a wild idea that actually
> turns out to be true. I don't know that any wild idea
> will work, but I have to beleive in it to try it.
>
> That's worked for me.
>
> > First, define defect-free. Do negative user
> > experiences count as "defects"? Is the set of
> > defects merely the set of all calculations? Is the
> > inability to deal with data corruption a defect?
> > You could define an infinite amount of unit tests
> > for any given application, so "defect-free" is an
> > unqualified statement.
>
> I'd rather go with an empirical approach. Whenever
> I've tried to define 'defect' with words, I've fallen
> flat. What I do know is, and my experience has shown
> it to me, is that a group of customers and programmers
> can get together, look at all the 'stuff that goes
> wrong' and decide what is a defect and what is a new
> story without too much debate.
>
> Now, if we fix all those defects when they are found,
> and then make sure we do things to stop them from ever
> occuring again, is it a far stretch that we can get
> defect free software?
>
> >
> > But I believe that some notion of software that
> > will satisfy everyone and will never in any
> > situation crash or run through a bug, is a goal that
> > is inherently unreachable and is an illegitimate
> > perversion of reality.
>
> First, I don't think that software should satisfy
> everyone. I think that it should satisfy your target
> market. That's part of what business value is about.
>
> Second, my team has written software that does not
> crash. One of the first user stories was "Software
> does not crash ever, ever, ever". So it doesn't. We
> thought that was a really silly requirement, to be
> precise. But our first coach didn't think so. And so
> he pushed us to find a solution. And we did. Now, we
> fail fast, get a rich set of information about any
> problem that occurs, and the software continues on.
> If we didn't beleive it was possible, we may never
> have done it.
>
> > Everything is essentially untrustworthy to some
> > degree, ... Everything is in constant change, and
> > although the fabricated realities we create in code
> > would seem to belie that, they still exist in a
> > world that is predicated on time and change.
>
> Everything changes. Sure. But that doesn't mean that
> solutions can't be right for certain points in time.
> It also doesn't mean that evolutionary design is about
> making a flawed system less flawed over time.
>
> Chris.
>
>
>
>
> =====
> ---------------------------
> C H R I S W H E E L E R
> Extreme Programmer & Coach
>
>
>
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail - Find what you need with new enhanced search.
> http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250
>
>
> To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
--
Sean Gilbertson
IT Systems/Software Developer
To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
