Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Fixing Broken Windows

I first heard about this concept when reading some material from the superb collection posted on www.pragmaticprogrammer.com. Basically, as and when you find problems, no matter the size or apparent importance... fix them. If you don't the analogy is with a street in disrepair, first the grafitti, and if that goes unchecked, the broken windows, and then finally masses of out of control street crime, derelict buildings and anarchy!

Now all well and good 'the business' might say, but we want to launch 3 million projects on to our platform in two weeks, and to hell with the maintenance... we want money! Fine, but then suddenly everythings looking a bit flaky, and you are firefighting for days at a time instead of actually being productive.... another saying fits the bill here...

'slowly slowly catchy monkey'.

Listen to the guys at www.pragmaticprogrammer.com, they are good!