Re: Hokay, I officially give up...

On 5/22/09, Mathieu Bouchard <matju-i8w/[email protected]> wrote:

> > But really, I do think there's a valid distinction here, between "barely
> > works" and "works well". We imagine our software that meets requirements
> > working well, but it usually doesn't.
>
> This is because you shift "works well" to be higher than "meets
> requirements" because you are trying to cope with situations in which
> you'd personally make the requirement list longer than your boss does.

Actually, no. I don't map "aesthetically pleasing" to requirements,
generally. There are many situations professionally where I would like
things to be better than they are - but I wouldn't advise it.
Resources are scarce, and time/money/skill allocated to one aspect of
a project is time/money/skill NOT allocated to another. We prioritize
all the time. And in most situations I'm in, prioritizing is a
euphemism for triage. We're already deciding where we can tolerate
"almost works" and where we can simply abandon things; going beyond
"barely works" is a luxury we can't really afford.

In my ideal world, a good failover system would be thoroughly tested
and so reliable and well-documented that it could be done by the
second-string support team. But in practice, I would not recommend
that as a requirement. It's a waste of resources chasing a corner
case.

-- 
-dave

"Why doesn't the Earth fall?  How can you walk upon it?  It's the
music.  It's the music of the Earth, and the Sun, and the Stars.  It's
the music of yourself, vibrating.  Yes, you are music too! You're all
instruments.  Everyone is supposed to be playing their part in this
vast Arkestra of the Cosmos."

-Sun Ra

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