Posts from — September 2008

I talk about being simple a lot.  I like software to be simple.  It’s not as hard when you keep it that way.  That’s important for a lot of reasons, but for me the most important thing is relating how that software is going to put dollars in your pocket.

The single most overlooked aspect of simplicity in software development is the concept of a “happy path”.  Look around, as tons of companies are doing it.  They’ll call it agile development, or some other silly buzzword, but in its simplest form, its nothing more than coming up with a happy path for how the customer will want to use your product.  Non-software people in your business will understand that and get engaged at a different level.

How does Joe Customer accomplish the problem your trying to solve with your software?  That’s it.  Go build that.  Get that done.  Stop getting hung up on implementing things that don’t matter.  Bite off that simple niche and build it with a limited feature set.  You’ll know when your done building if you need to add a few things here and there to make it work right.  Those few things will have a MUCH smaller development time and complexity curve.  Not to mention it can be offloaded easier because the “guts” are there and you can inject people with less domain knowledge (code monkeys) into the mix because you’ve really defined the “domain”.

Most software projects would just be better off re-written in a year or two anyway because of the speed of the tools evolving around it.  So instead of designing to write large complex systems, stay simple.  Build your first happy path and release it, and if it doesn’t solve your problem (and you’ll know because people won’t pay for it), bolt on another happy path and continue to build that way.

Simple is hard to do, but when done right keeps you moving at the speed of the competition around you.  Happy path software development will help you accomplish simple.

I am probably the farthest thing from a political person you can find on the planet.  I try to follow as much as I can, but I will be the first to admit that I keep elections at arms length. I don’t know why I’m like this.  I take a super keen interest in all things financial, and usually care immensely about my personal bottom line.  Which is why I should be more involved in the candidates and their policy stances.

So here we are with just a couple of months until for the presidential election and I find myself grossly unprepared.  There is still some time for me to sort things out, but it’s unlikely I’ll fully get there.  I can already see the writing on the wall for this.  BOTH candidates are standing on firm footing, and promising tons of change.

Education is the name of the game in politics, and following the issues especially with the media spin and just limitless nature of people having a voice on the web, is tough.  So with my money, when I get into situations like this where filters are broken and EVERYONE has an opinion, I typically fall back on some sort of intelligence quotient.  I like to interact with smart people and get ideas from them, and help me see angles I don’t.  I would like to think that both candidates have some decent level of intelligence, but I can see where one camp really has the edge when it comes to this.  So that’s probably where I’m leaning with my vote.  When all else is equal, I like smart.

Just explaining where my mind will be in November if I can’t figure out where these two candidates REALLY stand, which is likely because that’s what politics is all about.  Smoke and mirrors.

A LOT of people would disagree with this logic and I’m OK with that.  Just tell me why I am wrong.

I’ve wrote about adding randomness to your routine here. Its amazing what it will add to your creativity. In that light, I figured why not delve into a follow up on a slightly similar theme. It’s about dealing with adversity, and the challenges of things that will never go away.

Look at it as a constant. There are things in life that are going to try and knock you off track. Those phone calls you get where your stomach turns over a bit. That deadline that is looming at work, but your stuck because you can’t get anyone to help you over the hump. That project that just isn’t what your interested in, so you procrastinate. These things will be there NO MATTER WHAT.

So what do you do in the face of turmoil? Meet it head on. Have that hard conversation. Stay level headed and ALWAYS step back and analyze before jumping rationally into a decision or argument. Its something I’m currently working on. I have always had a tendency to act irrationally, but step back and go, “why did I do or say it that? I could have done it better”. Well, now I’m into action.

I love the churn of chaos more than most people, just because I understand things aren’t perfect. As much as you think so and so (insert person here) is living the dream, they aren’t. Their problems are just a different set than yours.

So switch your gears and learn to deal with a bit of chaos. It’s everywhere.