Subj : Re: Software Job Market Myths
To   : comp.programming,comp.software-eng
From : David Lightstone
Date : Sun Jul 17 2005 06:34 pm


"Phlip" <phlip_cpp@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:aFvCe.65$IG2.40@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com...
> pete wrote:
>
>> All that you need to be a customer, is money.
>> You don't have know anything.
>
> True. So to grow a successful software project, you need Someone capable 
> of
> specifying its features. The better they know the target domain, the 
> better
> they can specify.
>
>> Sometimes the answer to "What do you want?" is "What do you have?".
>> As a project progresses, the customer becomes
>> aware of the programmers capabilities
>> and then you have specification creep.
>
> No. Then the customer steers the project towards business goals.


Am I quoting you incorrectly " The bottleneck is often the user/customer. 
They often don't really know what they want and/or how to describe it with 
words."

How can you steer when you don't know what you want?


>
> Specification creep is _good_; it's the result of learning.

Without doubt, but in the context of software development learning what you 
REALLY want to do after you have done it once just isn't part of the 
production drill for which certain techniques


>
> Implementing features in order of business priority increases the odds 
> that
> the team has something useful soon. This increases understanding what the
> next features should be.

Without doubt, but that assumes the customer knows what they want. You have 
asserted the invalidity of that assumption.  Pick one assumption and run 
with it, don't waste our time with doubletalk

.