On time and on budget - yeah right!

Sat 07 August 2010

Developing complex software well is actually very difficult to do.

Seems to me it requires intelligence way above average, combined with enough pig-headedness to refuse to be defeated by dumb chips and other people's code spitting random error codes at you - often for hours or days at a time.

It's made worse by businesses and managers with no real clue what software engineering actually is, and swathes of hackers "software engineers" hiding behind a smokescreen of methodologies and technobabble.

So with that perspective in mind ... here's my first rant public sacrifice...

Everybody says "we deliver on time and on budget". Don't make me laugh!

Strangely, the only time I ever saw a project come in on time and on budget was when we bribed the team offered a completion bonus. Most projects are late, over budget and would benefit from a complete re-write.

There, I've said it.

I feel better now.