Beyond Legacy Code

Don’t Say How

Customers and customer service managers alike should get away from the whole idea of telling developers how to do something, and there are several reasons for that.

The way software is built is not terribly intuitive for people who don’t know how to do it. It’s not as if everyone can just sit down at a computer and figure it out. So considerable effort is put into trying to translate the software development process into something more understandable to the layperson, as a way to help the customer feel more confident that his or her needs are being heard and there’s solid agreement as to what the project is and what it will do. That’s perfectly reasonable, but unfortunately that effort tends to yield a rigid set of requirements. ...