Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Sometimes research leads old guys to remember lessons from way back. Crisis helps us forget to our peril

The other day at work, we were speaking with a thought leader in an area of technology. This person truly is an expert and a thought leader in the future of his area.

The future belongs to those who:

• have modular designs (architecture is the words everyone uses today)
• flexible in thought
• can change
• have portable software
• a few more

Wait, I heard these things in the late 1970s. Have most people forgotten these things? Have most people never heard of these things?

Another thought: in the recent past, we lurch from one crisis to another. A crisis causes us to put some software out there quickly. Do something that works now. We will refactor or fix it real soon now. We wake a year later and “real soon now” hasn’t arrived. We have a mess. I suppose we call that “technical debt.”

Crisis gives us a reason to forget the things we know we should do. The human condition remains. Let’s try to remember what we know.