How to cheat at the lottery

[Ben Laurie]

lists@notatla.demon.co.uk wrote:
> 
> Ben Laurie <ben@algroup.co.uk>
> 
> > It may be worth noting that, in Apache at least, design tends to be done
> >  in a rather less collaborative way than the programming is. I suspect
> > this is partially cultural, but also because the tools are less suited
> > to the design process.
> 
> Brooks ("The Mythical Man-Month", ISBN 0-201-83595-9) points out how design
> is best done by a small number of people, programming by a larger team (for
> projects with real deadlines).   Communication adds overhead to a project and
> contributes to the law
> 
>    "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later".

Although Brooks can be considered to be the bible, his problem space is
not everyone's. In particular, his man-months were constrained by
traditional organisational structures.

I agree that communication can be a problem, but one of the interesting
things about collaborative development is that the communication _is_
the development. This is in sharp contrast to the old way of doing
things. How well this applies to the design space is not clear (to me,
at least).

Cheers,

Ben.

--
http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html

"My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those
who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the
first group; there was less competition there."
     - Indira Gandhi