On 28 Jul 2001 03:17:42 GMT esteemed Mama Cass Elliot did hold forth thusly:
> And *that's* where paper comes in useful. If you attempt to keep it all in
> your head then you've got no hope of achieving it - and neither does anyone
> else knows what you've done.
You can write it all down but different pages of paper can say things that
contradict each other. Sometimes the contradictions are not apparent just from
looking at two pages. One has to trace thru many different parts of a system
thru many parts of the requirements to see why two requirements or two
design pieces are incompatible in some way. This recognition of the
incompatibilities has to take place in some human mind.
> > [quoted text muted]
> > Audio engineering is a lot less complex.
>
> Sounds like you've not done Audio Engineering!
>
> Some projects require the simultanious work of 5 Engineers operating the
> mixing desk and anciliary equipment in order to attempt to produce the
> desired quality of product.
I've been on projects where literally hundreds of software engineers worked on
a single project. In addition, there were requirements analysts, electrical
engineers, mechanical engineers, managers, and many others. 5 engineers?
Small and uncomplicated stuff.
Go look at the number of people mentioned in Mozilla's progress reports. I
don't know how many they have working on Moz just at Netscape but I'm guessing
its at least 50 and many 100 or more. Then there are various people outside
of Netscape working on it too. Some at other companies and some just sitting
at home in their spare time. Then there are people testing and filing bug
reports and requests for enhancement. The project is fairly large and yet it
is far from being the biggest software project now in progress.
