Non-developers (or developers unfamiliar with the details of a particular feature) sometimes say that a seemingly straightforward change “should be easy to implement” without knowing whereof they speak.
Usually what they mean is that in the perfect world that exists in their imagination it should be easy. Sadly, this is an imperfect world full of shitty code, and even when the code’s not shitty it may not always be possible to accommodate new requirements without refactoring.
Never tell a developer something should be easy to implement unless:
- The universe is perfect, or
- You plan to implement it yourself
This blogget was inspired by my hellish week and a coincidental tweet by @AptanaLoriHC.
Comments
Hell yeah
Amen, brother..
an example...
had a (non-developer) boss tell me that it would take an afternoon to write a fax server for sending faxes/receiving faxes and storing them appropriately/handling dropped or failed faxes with automated phone calls to ask for new fax numbers
maybe if it wasn’t a one man job…needless to say the project took much longer (especially when more and more features kept getting added on…)
It's just
please apply: s/ developer something should be easy to implement/nyone that something is easy to do/ to make the rule more general as you see this all over the place.
A marathon what’s so difficult about that? it’s just running ;)
reminded me of this
From the Code Monkey song (Jonathan Coulter here)
Code Monkey get up get coffee
Code Monkey go to job
Code Monkey have boring meeting
with boring manager Rob
Rob say Code Monkey very diligent
but his output stink
his code not functional or elegant
what do Code Monkey think
Code Monkey think maybe manager oughta write goddamn login page himself
Code Monkey not say it out loud
Code Monkey not crazy just proud