I've been pairing with Andy Palmer over this last week. I have to say it's been a lot of fun... and I think we've learned a lot from the experience. One of the things I learned from Andy this week was an innovative use of Hungarian notation for interfaces... Andy told me about Udi Dahan's presentation on intentions and interfaces (PDF)

The technology stack on top of each tower looks impressive . The project is anything but impressive , with many of the issues typical in the IT industry: badly underestimated effort, not involving users, and not enough testing, While there was evidently a push for reuse of existing systems and components, it caused many difficulties: trying to base the system around a law enforcement dispatch system (!) that couldn't scale, trying to use off-the-shelf components that weren't designed to integrate, and a lack of standards for the sensors. The builder of the system, Boeing, has only taken 3/4s of the $20 million fee, granted a $2 million credit, and apparently paid $40 million to get this far on a project that will now finish in 2011, not the end of this year (which was already a year and a half past the original schedule). That will only be phase one!

Here’s a question that I didn’t realize I had much to say about until I read my own response.

 

The Question:

Software Development: Is it an art or a science? An age old question I know, but what do you think and why?

 

My Response:

 

I refer to new software development as a scientific art. I've seen some maintenance work, platform porting, etc. that has been almost entirely mechanical -- I'm not sure what that counts as, but I certainly didn't witness anything "artistic".