Multi platform, high volume data recording

[Jonathan Stowe]

On Sun, 2007-11-11 at 11:47 -0800, ben at bpfh.net wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 11, 2007 at 04:16:28PM +0000, Gareth Kirwan wrote:
> >Often adding resources by the time you realise you're going to miss a
> >deadline doesn't have the affect you hope for.
> 
> "Adding programmers to a late software project makes it later" - Brooks

Yet, despite Brooks' explaining this more than thirty years ago and it
being part of the commonplace experience of practitioners in software
development, there are still managers who believe they can get away with
it. 

On the face of it this would seem rather surprising until you realize
that the mechanical adherence to "methodology" or rather some facility
with certain software[*] that gives the appearance of some methodology
plays straight into the hands of the mistake: you feed in some more
resource and recalculate everything and everything's back on track - you
present your new gantt chart to the management team and you're off the
hook. The managers like it because bigger teams look good on the CV and
de-scoping spoils their plans for world domination. By the time that the
project has gone titsup after several such iterations, the management
consensus is that it was an impossible project or poorly scoped or
something.

But we all knew that already.

[*] I don't think I need to give prizes here.

/J\

-- 
Your religion sucks