Software Construction (Voice of Experts)

1
Software Construction(Voice of Experts)

• Myung Ho Kim
• National Technology Officer (NTO)
• Microsoft Korea

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Agenda

• Myths of Rapid Software Development
• Realities of Modern Software Construction
• Workplace Demons and Code of Ethics

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Myths of Rapid Software Development (RD)

• Rapid development is a new issue
• Productivity is about the same at every org.
• Working hard promotes rapid development
• Short estimates produce short projects
• Productivity can be improved tactically, on a
  project-by-project basis
• You can trade-off quality for schedule or cost
• Customers and managers want short schedules
• Smart developers exert the biggest productivity
  impact
• Software processes apply only to large,
  old-fashioned, bureaucratic projects
• Systematic development approaches hurt morale

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1. Rapid development has been an issue for 30
years!

• Software crisis has never been overcome

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2. Productivity varies greatly

• 201 variations in productivity between different
  programmers
• 101 variations in productivity between different
  companies working in the same industries
• Organizations that focus on software best
  practices report improvements in their own
  productivity of 2-5x over time

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3. Working hard is not enough

• Whos right at all?
• Its better to work smart than to work hard (Old
  saying)
• Its better to work smart and hard (Microsoft)
• Its better to work smart and hard and long
  (Amazon.com)
• Working just hard and smart usually means working
  dumb!
• The average project spends 40-80 of its budget
  on unplanned rework (defect corrections) working
  dumb
• Work smart, not hard turns out to be the right
  idea after all

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4. Short estimates increase cost and schedule

• Estimates must be made accurate before rapid
  development is achieved
• This typically means increasing estimates
• Common practice is under-estimation
• This is hard because people want to believe they
  will develop software faster than they usually do

8
5. Improving productivity is primarily an
organizational strategy

• Productivity is affected by organizational
  influences that are hard to change on a
  project-by-project basis
• In software, past performance is your best
  indicator of future performance
• We werent all stupidity yesterday
• We arent 500 smarter today
• Assume no more than 10 improvement in
  productivity from one project to the next
  considering all factors combined!

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6. Quality explains it all

• When organizations focus on quality, they
  typically improve in all categories at once

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7. People want many different kinds of rapid
development

• Shortest possible schedule
• Least risk of overrun
• Better schedule visibility
• Better schedule predictability
• Reduced risk of project cancellation
• Decreast cost

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8. Smart individuals dont guarantee rapid results

• A lot of truth to this exists
• 201 difference in productivity among programmers
  with similar experience levels
• Similar differences in design quality, program
  size, debugging performance, and debugging
  effectiveness
• But
• Team cohesion matters at least as much
• Organizational characteristics make a significant
  difference too

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9. Good processes are based on good judgment
Source Adapted from Telcorida Technologies The
Journey to High Maturity, Bill Pitteman, IEEE
Software, July 2000
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10. Whats really bad for morale?

• Long hours
• Unrealistic schedules
• High stress
• Feeling of low productivity
• Working on poor-quality software

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Realities of Modern Construction (CC2)

• The worst construction ideas of the 1990s and
  2000s
• A decade of advances in construction
• 10 realities of modern software construction

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Some of the worst construction ideas of 1990s

• Code fix
• All design up front programming
• Design for speculative requirements
• Components will solve all our construction
  problems
• Automatic programming
• Uninformed use of the waterfall model
• Calling everything object-oriented

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Some of the worst construction ideas of 2000s

• Code fix
• No design up front programming
• Planning to refactor later
• Offshore outsourcing will solve all our
  construction problems
• Automatic programming
• Uninformed use of Extreme Programming
• Calling everything agile

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Worst Ideas, 1990s vs. 2000s

• 1990s
• Code fix
• All design up front programming
• Design for speculative requirements
• Components will solve all our construction
  problems
• Automatic programming
• Uninformed use of the waterfall model
• Calling everything object-oriented

• 2000s
• Code fix
• No design up front programming
• Planning to refactor later
• Outsourcing will solve all our construction
  problems
• Automatic programming
• Uninformed use of Extreme Programming
• Calling everything agile

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A Decade of Advances in Software Construction

• Design has been raised a level
• Daily build and Smoke test
• Standard libraries
• Visual programming innovation
• Nice community of programmers
• The Web, for research
• Widespread use of Incremental development
• Test-first development
• Refactoring as a discipline
• Faster computers

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10 Realities of modern SW construction

• Construction is a legitimate topic
• Individual variation is significant
• Personal discipline matters
• A focus on simplicity works better than a focus
  on complexity
• Defect-cost increase is alive and well
• Importance of design is well perceived
• Technology waves affect construction practices
• Incremental approaches work best
• The toolbox metaphor continues to be illuminating
• Software essential tensions ever grow

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1. Todays Software Construction
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2. Key skills of an expert programmer

• Designing
• Flushing out errors and ambiguities in
  requirements
• Coding (naming, formatting, commenting)
• Reading and reviewing code
• Integration
• Debugging
• Unit testing
• Teamwork
• Using tools for all of the above

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3. Areas where discipline matters

• Refactoring
• Prototyping
• Optimization
• Minimal-complexity designs specifically
• Managing complexity generally

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4. Simplicity vs. Complexity

• Why do projects fail?
• Focus on read-time convenience, not write-time
  convenience
• YAGNI (You Arent Gonna Need It) and design for
  speculative requirements

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5. Defect-Cost Increase
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6. Design extremes are not usually not productive

• All design up front vs. no design up front
• Entirely planned vs. entirely improvised
• Pure iterative vs. straight sequential
• All structure vs. all creative
• Document everything vs. document nothing

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7. Effect of Technology Waves on Construction

• Definition of technology wave
• Early-wave characteristics
• Mature-wave characteristics
• Late-wave characteristics
• Construction is affected by technology more than
  you usually think
• Technology can be addressed in terms of general
  principles

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8. Perspective on Incrementalism

• The pure waterfall model is not at all
  incremental or iterative which is why it hasnt
  worked very well
• Spiral development is highly incremental and
  iterative, which is part of why it does work well
• All projects will experience iteration at some
  point
• Think about where and when in your project you
  will get your incrementalism cheaply, or
  expensively?

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9. Toolbox Metaphor

• Whats best? Agile? XP? Scrum? DSDM? CMM?
• Toolbox explains theres no one right tool for
  every job
• Different industry segments will have different
  tools and even different toolboxes
• Whats in the Software Engineering Toolbox?
• Best practices
• Lifecycle models
• Templates, checklists, patterns, examples
• Software tools

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10. Softwares Essential Tensions

• Rigid plans vs. Improvisation
• Planning vs. Fortune telling
• Creativity vs. Structure
• Discipline vs. Flexibility
• Quantitative vs. Qualitative
• Process vs. Product
• Optimizing vs. Satisfying

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Watch out those Workplace Demons!

• Demons addressed (either explicitly or
  implicitly) in the Software Engineering Code of
  Ethics
• Dishonesty
• Gossip
• Backbiting
• Intolerance
• Sexism
• Sloppiness
• Inability to Speak to Power
• Carelessness/Mindlessness
• Jealousy
• Lack of Respect for the Other
• Blaming
• Non-conformity
• Please come out from the Color of the Night, and
• Learn how to transform those demons into positive
  energies