From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Xref: utzoo comp.lang.ada:5764 comp.lang.c++:14280 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!ultra!jerbil From: jerbil@ultra.com (Joseph Beckenbach {Adapter Software Release Engr}) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: chief programmer team organizations Message-ID: <1991Jun21.154734.21343@ultra.com> Date: 21 Jun 91 15:47:34 GMT References: <1991Jun20.143535.27176@software.org> Organization: Ultra Network Technologies List-Id: >> Alex Blakemore > Ron House >>This makes sense and sounds like it can work well. It's really just >>the chief programmer teams from the Mythical Man Month by Fred Brookes. >>One obvious caveat - you really better have the right people >>in the chief programmer roles or you are sunk. >The book "Software that Works" by Michael Ward recommends against this for >exactly the reason you mention, among others. He feels that the programmers >must be involved in design, and that design/programming should alternate, >rather than one coming first in a big chunk followed by the other. >That's my potted version, anyway. Not having read Mr. Ward's book, I cannot say how to interpret his experience. Having read Mr. Brooks's book, and drawing on my own experience, I can say that Ron House seems to have fallen into a common misconception -- in a project requiring architects, once the architects are finished the design work is done, and no-one else can do any design work. This view is a myth, since it extrapolates the huge-scale software effort from the small-scale software effort. One can as successfully extrapolate from a doghouse to a city block in downtown Manhattan. The architects exist to provide a grand unifying vision for a project, so that there is a framework for the rest of the work to proceed. The teams and team members who must create the darn thing have few exact specifications, no clear idea what trade-offs will be necessary to meet high-level designs, and no limitations on exactly how they will get there. If going from there to being ready to code isn't "design" in its own right, then by that usage of the word there is NOBODY who does design in projects smaller than five people, in any field of endeavor. One MUST have good people at the top. This does not mean that all the thinking is done at the top, just the broadest strokes of the brush. And note that Brooks's project had several HUNDRED programmers working at any one time; without such a division of labor, the project would not have been possible. Joseph Beckenbach -- ---- Joseph Beckenbach jerbil@ultra.com 408-922-0100 x246