(no subject)
In the middle of an interesting post about online identity, eggwhite wrote something I want to highlight for everyone working in any sort of software development environment:
I'd been banging on and on about how identity was important, meaning one thing. The folks I'd been working with had heard me banging on about identity being important, but hearing something entirely different. Identity meant different things to different people on the team, and that was muddying the waters.
Spotting this sort of thing happening in real time, especially during spec-thrashing-out type meetings, is an incredibly valuable skill.
Practice, learn, and draw attention to it when it happens, because this stuff leads to bugs. Not just common-or-garden "oops, sorry, fixed in a couple of hours" bugs, but "oh $%^$, we'll have to re-plumb half the world and de-cromulate the dinglebat to even begin sorting that mess out, it's gonna take months, we're doooomed!" bugs.
(consider this a rather late speak-out geek-out thing)
I'd been banging on and on about how identity was important, meaning one thing. The folks I'd been working with had heard me banging on about identity being important, but hearing something entirely different. Identity meant different things to different people on the team, and that was muddying the waters.
Spotting this sort of thing happening in real time, especially during spec-thrashing-out type meetings, is an incredibly valuable skill.
Practice, learn, and draw attention to it when it happens, because this stuff leads to bugs. Not just common-or-garden "oops, sorry, fixed in a couple of hours" bugs, but "oh $%^$, we'll have to re-plumb half the world and de-cromulate the dinglebat to even begin sorting that mess out, it's gonna take months, we're doooomed!" bugs.
(consider this a rather late speak-out geek-out thing)