Better Software - March 2008 - (Page 36)

“Remember this corollary to Murphy’s Law: ‘The probability of bugs appearing is directly proportional to the number and importance of people watching.’” them throughout the software project also eats through the calendar. These activities get in the way of producing code, which, after all, is the role of developers—not analyzing risks. Furthermore, if software developers are constantly reminded about all the things that could go wrong, they could easily become distressed, and this would have a negative impact on productivity. This worst practice ensures that the legalese in the disclaimer notice (that cannot be read until the software package is opened) warrants absolutely nothing but return of the purchase price (if the software package has not been opened). In addition, the wording of the disclaimer should be sufficiently lengthy and complicated that the average user will not read it. ing the latest service pack for their operating system or the latest drivers for their motherboard, graphics card, and other peripheral devices. if the requirements are not understood, rather than attempting to adopt a use case-based methodology or struggling with reconciling what the customers and stakeholders want, use the silver bullet and automate requirements with a new requirements-tracking tool. But the silver bullet doesn’t have to be a tool; an in-house training course for the better part of a week with all project members in attendance is another good option. Whatever productivity is lost during the week will be more than made up once the secret to successful software development is disclosed in the class. If the problems are with management, then a reorganization of the subordinate work force is the usual solution. If the problems are cost related, then the offshore outsourcing gambit may be the silver bullet. The important point is trying to find the silver bullet, which provides “something for nothing” and creates the magical solution to all shortcomings. In this worst practice, great trust is put in the claims of the vendor supplying the silver bullet. At all costs avoid using the many simple best practices that others tout. To do so would be an admission that the organization’s insurmountable challenges have all been solved before by others. Having a silver bullet brings with it the hope that there is a solution complex enough to be acceptable. {end} 15.Don’t think about training until after release. 14.Assume the users are experts and will not need support. One of the absolute biggest time wasters is adding code to display clear and meaningful error messages. Much development time can be saved by assuming the users are experts and don’t need their intelligence insulted by sophomoric error messages that explain clearly what went wrong. Real experts will want to figure this out themselves, anyway. Besides, handling, recovering from, and displaying errors correctly can add up to 80 percent more code to the software. This worst practice allows that users rarely make mistakes and focuses on delivering the software sooner. Code to handle error-return values and display error messages can always be added later in a service pack or later version. Until then, blame the users for misusing the software or not havBETTER SOFTWARE MARCH 2008 Training is something that should be ignored until the end of the software project. Spending time developing online training, training manuals, and example problems just creates distractions for the developers who are busy writing code. Without training manuals you avoid the problem of the manual’s lack of agreement with how the software really works. It makes good sense to use the least productive developers as customer trainers as kind of a “punishment” for their slothfulness. Teaching a software training course takes skill and creativity with software that is full of bugs and crashes randomly, so don’t do it. Remember this corollary to Murphy’s Law: “The probability of bugs appearing is directly proportional to the number and importance of people watching.” Most people like to figure out how software works without training. Good training can take the thrill and mystery out of using the software. If none of these fifteen worst practices pan out and it looks like there is no way to meet the customer expectations, no time in the schedule to meet deadlines, and no way to avoid a bad outcome, there is always the one last worst practice—the “silver bullet.” In this worst practice, it is imperative to take one last-gasp action to resolve all the shortcomings of the organization’s software development process. For example, www.StickyMinds.com 36 http://www.StickyMinds.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Better Software - March 2008

Better Software - March 2008 Contents Mark Your Calendar Contributors eLightenment Technically Speaking Code Craft Test Connection Management Chronicles Cover Story: Breaking Ground On SOA Software Development Worst Practices Mind the Gap Product Announcements 10 Things You Might Not Know About... The Last Word Ad Index

Better Software - March 2008

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