Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Software Craftsmanship, why it matters?

While reading Donald Norman's "The design of everyday things" unexpectedly I found a most useful idea for explaining the relevance of the Software Craftsmanship movement (strikethrough is mine):

"Without a good model theory we operate by rote, blindly; we do operations as we were told to do them; we can't fully appreciate why, what effects to expect, or what to do if things go wrong. As long as things work properly, we can manage. When things go wrong, however, or when we come up with a novel situation, then we need a deeper understanding, a good model theory"

That's it. I've seen so many software developers that are clueless when given a new project, team, environment, technology, etc. They have no idea what direction to follow when one is not given to them, or how to improve their careers and skills. In short: They don't have a good theory of what software development is all about.

I think Software Craftsmanship is an attempt to create a good theory of what sound software development is all about. Now we know our craft, and we must tell everybody who doesn't.

0 comentarios:

Post a Comment