Andy Hedges’ Tech Blog

It seems to me much of the two essays, Surgical Team and Mythical Man Month in Fred Brooks important work are elaborations on Adam Smith’s theories of Specialisation and Division of Labour and production line optimisation but applied specifically to software development. Which is excellent and worthwhile cause; as software engineering still lacks the rigour associated with other engineering professions.

I need to re-read both the great men’s works but I think there is millage in applying more of Adam Smith’s principles to software engineering.

See:

• An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
• The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering

On the way home, from work, in the car I was thinking…

People use analogies a lot in IT and rightly so analogies help people transfer knowledge of one simple thing they understand to a more complicated thing they don’t (yet). The trouble with analogies is that people take them too far and they no longer fit. It is somewhat a kin to taking your knowledge of grade school physics and using it to try and discover the Grand Unified Theory.

There we have it I have used an analogy to show the problems with analogies, an analogy of analogies, maybe I’m spending too much time in the car these days.