Re:What do you feel about Software Process like CMM/CMMi ?
by create_account on Friday April 20, 2007 @12:18PM
(#15109)
The road to hell is paved with good intentions (and bad specs).
Re:What do you feel about Software Process like CMM/CMMi ?
by cwilbur on Friday April 20, 2007 @04:36PM
(#15198)
Oh yes - I don't think CMM &c are silver bullets.
But in the end, to build software you have to communicate. Once the group working on the software is larger than 5 or 6, unless everyone on the team is phenomenally good, you need to formalize this communication somehow. All of these formal development methodologies are ways of accomplishing that -- none of them are necessarily good, but at least they solve that problem so you can get to other problems.
Of course, this leads to other problems, such as the ISO 9001 compliant company that has all of its dysfunctional processes documented in explicit detail that must be followed. (I worked there once. It was like Office Space meets Brazil.)
When you're a group of fewer than 5 programmers and you're all smarter than the average bear, they're useless.
In essence, they're a ritualization of the communication and testing process that has to happen to make software good and reliable. Without some communication and testing, the software will suck; at a certain organizational size, or with programmers of lower ability levels, you can't rely on the programmers to do it themselves.