Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Z is for Zen and the art of software development

All month, I've been talking about software development.

I've talked about a lot of things that I believe are important to writing good software.

If you've been following any of these posts, you may have noticed one peculiar omission. Nowhere, in any of these posts, do I make anything more than a passing reference to programming.

I said at the start that this was not going to be a geek-fest. In fact, it has been something of an anti-geek rant. I'm especially grateful for the comments mentioning that posts were easy to understand, even for the non-IT person. That was the whole idea. I was on a mission to make things accessible to folks with no IT background whatsoever.

Because, the theme of this month has really been about putting you, non-technical folks who just happen to use software for work and for leisure, front and center of the development process.

Software development is about far more than writing code.

The paradox is, to write good software, you have to start by forgetting about writing software altogether.

10 comments:

Jean Davis said...

You've made this a very informative month. :) Congrats on making it all the way from A to Z!

Unknown said...

It's been fun participating in your A-Z challenge. All of your posts for this challenge were fun and informative. I like to read posts where when I'm done I feel like saying, "YEAH! Hallelujah, someone agrees with me."

:D

Valerie said...

And who doesn't love a good paradox!? :0)

Hugs!

Valerie

Andrea said...

Great information! Sounds like you had fun as well. Congratulations!

Amanda Trought said...

Well done for making it to the end, I am going to enjoy reading through some of your past posts. I listed your blog on my 'V' post for the challenge. Have a great week.
Amanda - Realityarts-Creativity
Art Blog

Botanist said...

Jean, Diane, glad you found something of interest. Sorry I haven't been as present as I should - visited lots of blogs, commented more sparingly.

Valerie, paradoxes - the spice of life :)

Andrea, it was fun. Not so sure about doing it again though. It's a big time hog.

Amanda, thanks. I'll need to pop over and take a look.

Shell Flower said...

Congrats on making it through the challenge. I am still catching up on visiting blogs. I really like your topic of software for non-geeks.

Botanist said...

Thanks Shell. I've been really struggling to keep up with my usual blog visiting too. You took on a very brave challenge this month, well done on finishing it.

Misha Gerrick said...

That is a rather interesting paradox. How do you do it? :-)

Crystal Collier said...

I, for one, found significantly more meaning in your posts than programmers woes. It was a great series. Will you be doing it again next year?

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