I think you're confusing a project management methodology with an architecture. Design is an architectural concern, and has nothing intrinsically to do with delivery dates or management philosophies. The analogies were to point out the flaw in your logic. The house, car and work animals require a strong foundation to perform their function, and the same is true of software.
Inspired flexible design is a critical ingredient to making a project management approach like 'Agile' work. Get it wrong and you'll get lost in refactoring hell. -----Original Message----- From: android-developers@googlegroups.com [mailto:android-developers@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ali Chousein Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2011 3:14 PM To: Android Developers Subject: [android-developers] Re: Career as an Andoid developer. Is there any point? Chris, yes, I said exactly that, but you got it completely wrong. My understanding of "good initial design" Dan was referring to, was software which can live for the next 30 years or something like that (those are the words he used, he can correct me if he was trying to mean anything else). I definitely wouldn't pay a penny to a software which has been "designed" to live for the next 30 years. Talking about houses, cars etc. you are mixing apples with oranges. The waterfall model of software development is based on the experiences from such industries. Even though waterfall could be a good approach for developing software for avionics for example, in consumer electronics it doesn't work. If you don't take the iterative approach to developing software (short release cycles etc), you are out of business from day one, because most probably you are developing things that customers are not willing to pay. Iterative approach to software development might seem as lack of "good initial design" to some people, but I'm not aware of a better alternative. That's what I was referring to and it never occurred to me that we were discussing building houses or cars in this platform. On May 26, 3:33 am, "Christopher Van Kirk" <christopher.vank...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm sorry, did you actually just say "If you say 'it doesn't have good > initial design', I would consider that as a plus instead of shortcoming"? > > Really? > > Are you also in the habit of purchasing houses with bad foundations, > cars with broken chasses, and work animals with broken backs? > > I've heard some crazy statements in my day, but this one has to be > near the top of the list. > > -----Original Message----- > From: android-developers@googlegroups.com > > [mailto:android-developers@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ali Chousein > Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2011 6:27 AM > To: Android Developers > Subject: [android-developers] Re: Career as an Andoid developer. Is > there any point? > > Dan, you are looking from a very classical point of you. I mean the > following: > > 1. " how much impact these 'limiting decisions' will have in the future..." > 2. " thanks to good initial design (or sometimes just clever > emulation), are able to advance their platforms while still > maintaining compatibility with apps that are 30 years old." > > This apporach of initially designing everyhting, trying to think of > every little detail, forecasting in the future etc. is dead in > software development. It works in some classical industries like > avionics, but in consumer electronics, forget it, you cannot build any > decent product with this classical approach. (BTW, talking of > forcasting, have you read the book 'The Black Swan'?) As others also > mentioned, agile software development is the approach of building > modern software, which can meet short time to market needs and > changing requirements. Personally I don't see why Android is not > capable of meeting changing requirements in the market. I have the > impression that you have negative opinion of Android without even > knowing much about the platform itself. Is your opinion based on > hands- on software development experience on Android, or does it come > from reading blogs (probably most of them written by foot soldiers of > "that" company)? Sorry if I'm too blunt in asking such questions but > you are talking very much in general terms without pinpointing any > real shortcoming of the platform. If you say "it doesn't have good > initial design", I would consider that as a plus instead of shortcoming, because I have better faith in teams which work agile, instead of waterfall. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Developers" group. To post to this group, send email to android-developers@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to android-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-developers?hl=en
