At 83, I Decided to Develop an App

Re:At 83, I Decided to Develop an App by to3m on Sunday January 24, 2016 @09:03PM (#10965172)

WSJ article: http://www.wsj.com/articles/former-defense-secretary-marches...

    Mr. Rumsfeld can’t code. He doesn’t much even use a
    computer. But he guided his young digitally minded 
    associates who assembled the videogame with the same 
    method he used to rule the Pentagon—a flurry of memos
    called snowflakes.

    As a result, “Churchill Solitaire” is likely the only 
    videogame developed by an 83-year-old man using a 
    Dictaphone to record memos for the programmers. 

    [...]

    “We need to do a better job on these later versions. 
    They just get new glitches,” reads one note from Mr. 
    Rumsfeld. “[W]e ought to find some way we can achieve 
    steady improvement instead of simply making new 
    glitches.”

Related reading? - http://research.swtch.com/discover-debug

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Re:At 83, I Decided to Develop an App by SyneRyder on Monday January 25, 2016 @12:25AM (#10965748)

The description of that development process is dangerously reminiscent of an Oatmeal comic panel:

http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-img/comics/design_hell/8....

Rumsfeld himself is interesting, though. There's a documentary about him currently on Netflix, directed by Errol Morris: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2390962/

[Comic panel was from http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell ]

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Re:At 83, I Decided to Develop an App by sopooneo on Sunday January 24, 2016 @10:27PM (#10965394)

To me, this seems like the sort of project that would benefit greatly by putting an experienced project manager between the client (ie Rumsfeld) and the dev team. Other than planning meetings, I really think non-technical stake holders should never communicate directly with developers. I say that as a developer.

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Re:At 83, I Decided to Develop an App by voltagex_ on Sunday January 24, 2016 @11:32PM (#10965577)

Sometimes, especially in smaller teams, devs also have to act in a business analyst role as well as coding - I've got to know how to talk to business as well as other developers and managers.

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Re:At 83, I Decided to Develop an App by briandear on Monday January 25, 2016 @09:10AM (#10967223)

So, we add another salary to the team for something that amounts to a small project? If devs don't have the acumen to deal with "clients" directly, then they ought not take on projects that would require working with clients.

I see this all the time, especially with offshore development. I was the lead for a US project with an additional India team. We had a US-based PM for the Indian contractor. Then we had an India based PM, then we had 3 developers. Any time I needed to discuss something, I had to consult with the US PM, the US PM consulted with the India-based PM and the India based PM would then ask the devs. Then the answer would go through that path in reverse. A simple question like, "Where is the setup script file in the repo?" That took literally 6 emails, with delays of several hours between responses.

Needless to say, that arrangement didn't last long before I fired the company.

My point is that you don't always need an experienced project manager depending on the scope of the project and the number of developers. 10 devs -- yes absolutely. But 2 or 3 devs? Not necessarily.

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Re:At 83, I Decided to Develop an App by sopooneo on Monday January 25, 2016 @12:22PM (#10968445)

I agree with you completely. I think there is definitely a minimum project scope before a PM becomes a good investment. But I also think there should be a multiplier for how scattered/non-technical/crazy the client is.

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