Development log - red & black (2)

Development log - red & black (2)

Black - If I can do this again.

By Zhang Hui

When the SA date is coming, an idea aften occurs in my mind. That is - if I can do this again.

An old book read that if an old man can reborn and re-walk along his life from begining, he will
avoid most of the errors & fault in his life. It's also true for we developers.

If I can do this again. I will not follow the water-pool software model. It's not right for our 
development. The timespan is over one year. The marketing is changing. The requrirement is changing. The UI spec 
is not lock down until 3 month before SA. All are changing, all are not fixed. Yes, we can blame 
someone else on slow UI spec, on always changing requriement. But actually, we can blame no one 
else except ourselves. Under such condition, it's not right to do "requirement" & "high level design" 
for such a long time. The more we do, the more waste we produce. Actually, we need a prototype to 
discuss with our customers, internally,  UI designer and marketing guys.

If I can do this again. I will follow some XP rules, to test first, to release quickly. to do the 
simplist design that can meet current requirement. to avoid over-disign, to communicate more. Since 
we are facing with the changing world, why not exbrace the XP rule?

If I can do this again. I will use prototype to communicate with the UI designer, the marketing guys.
I have no excuse to blame on them. It's natural for anyone to say "that's not what I want" after 6 
month of isolated development. It's very easy to use python & PyQt/wxWindows to make a prototype 
application to capture the real requirement.

If I can do this again. I will use less time to argue with UI team. It's cost time & energy to get 
little effect. I will focus on the conceptual model by myself. It's not their duty to do this level design. 
I will not argue with them on the "visual effect" or some UI detail such as this checkbox should be 
rectangle. The UI feature is decided by UI framework. We are just use standard widget. Any argument on 
such issue is just a waste of time. More over, I will not argue on some "natural" things. Such as should 
the password edit display "*****" or original text. It's funny to discuss such issue. 

Always do the right thing, you surely have such confidence
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