An Introduction

This blog will contain posts that run contrary to the "conventional wisdom" of software development. These ideas may be high-level as in pie in the sky project ideas or micro as in human vs. machine efficiency but irrespective of where they fit in the scheme of programming or development or management, they won't fit the norm.

Over time I hope to share ideas that are meant to provoke. I invite discussion and disagreement and hope we keep it at a professional level.

Do keep in mind that my guiding philosophy for software development is this. The system -- at the macro level and at the code at micro level -- must be reliable, robust, easy to understand, transparent in intent, and facilitate maintenance. The reader, especially the programmer, will most likely be tempted to add "and efficient." So, in a sense this introduction serves as the first contrarian post.

A system must be efficient only to the extent that it meets the demands placed on it. Keep in mind that in most software suites 80-90% of execution time is spent in 10-15% of the code. So, why focus efficiency concerns elsewhere? One also finds that micro-improvements are almost never great performance enhancers. Finding a better way to tackle the problem will lead to improvements a magnitude better.