Design Principles

“No ideal process, or set of processes, exists” “Software processes must be selected, adapted, and applied as appropriate for each project and each organizational context.” (SWEBOK Ch 1.1 intro). No one likes to hear “that’s just how we do it”. Process without understanding leads to frustrating lack of results. Understanding factors of good process is critical for effective work across projects and for continued improvement. My working hypothesis is that effective processes are incremental, stable, and additive.

I recently gave a presentation on the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge focused on road maps for software learning. This involves much philosophy on how we think about software. The conversation surfaced many crucial fundamental views that often go unstated. I’ve enumerated them here.

It’s easy to drown in the sea of frameworks and methodologies available to programmers. Numerous authors speak out about against the constant swarming between them. However, now I have a concrete expression for both why it hurts and why fewer solutions can be better.