Developer Insights – Stories & Analogies

I was recently chatting with a choreographer friend. He shared that, for a recent production, he was forced to dumb down the choreography to match the capability of some of the cast. I joked that a chorus line was only as strong as the weakest dancer. He agreed.

So how does this relate to software development?

• Are your development teams restricted in the language and language constructs that they can use so that every team member is able to modify all the code?
• Do you allow only certain people to modify certain “crown jewels” code?
• Do you have code written in languages that only some members of the team understand?
• When you interview potential members of the team, how do you assess their ability to contribute at the required level?
• If you are writing a library that will be broadly used throughout your company, how do make sure that the broad base of users will be able to use it effectively? What checks do you put into place?
• Do you use any form of “certification” to increase the odds of appropriate use?
• Do you require every development team to have a resident expert on the technology? For example, do you require every development team have a member trained in writing secure code?