A common developer mistake is to assume clients, stakeholders, mums actually understand the multi-layered, n-tier, decomposed modular architectures they build.<\/p>\n

I read a piece of wisdom once that has just resonated with me as I came to present a demo of a system I’ve proudly built – but the demo UI isn’t quite finished. I was planning in my head how to explain that it does more than you can see (there’s some obvious gaps), then remembered how stupid that sounds to normal people.<\/p>\n

Developer: \u00a0Ok so here’s this amazing engine X we’ve built for you.
\nClient: \u00a0Great, so does it do Y?
\nDeveloper: \u00a0Oh sure, but there’s no UI for that just yet.
\nClient: \u00a0So… it doesn’t then.
\nDeveloper: \u00a0Oh yes it does, the core is extremely feature rich and the Z-layer, n-tier component bindings allow…
\nClient: \u00a0\ud83d\ude10<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An inaccessible feature, for all intents and purposes, not exist!<\/p>\n

The correct answer is to impress how easy it will be to “finish that off”.<\/p>\n

If in doubt, I use the building construction analogy: “All the foundations and walls are built, and we’ve finished the plumbing. We just need to fit-out and decorate before opening to the public.” From this a non-technical client can understand there’s still a bit of important work to do (possibly even functionality-related), but we’re over the hump and it’s more straightforward work from here, and will even start to look nice soon.<\/p>\n

The more I use the building analogy for development work, the deeper I find it matches, from the importance of architecture\u00a0and\u00a0foundations, the sequence of events, roles, responsibilities – all have analogues. In fact rebuilding my house gave me some real insights into running a software team, and even how a mature industry such as construction could provide guidance to one so young as software engineering – like universal standards for example!<\/p>\n

While this kind of cross pollination might be far fetched, you’d have to admit a building without any doors or windows is just as useless to a person as a software feature with no interface.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A common developer mistake is to assume clients, stakeholders, mums actually understand the multi-layered, n-tier, decomposed modular architectures they build. I read a piece of wisdom once that has just resonated with me as I came to present a demo … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[29,42,61],"class_list":["post-337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-humour","tag-software-engineering","tag-ui"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scipilot.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scipilot.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scipilot.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scipilot.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scipilot.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/scipilot.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":344,"href":"https:\/\/scipilot.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337\/revisions\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scipilot.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scipilot.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scipilot.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}