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1.49 MB
Extraction Summary
6
People
4
Organizations
0
Locations
0
Events
4
Relationships
4
Quotes
Document Information
Type:
Book excerpt / house oversight document production
File Size:
1.49 MB
Summary
This document is page 265 from a technical book or report regarding software development methodology, specifically arguing against separating specification from coding. It features a comic strip illustrating misconceptions about programming difficulty and lists famous open-source developers (Torvalds, Minessale, Mierla, Allman) as examples of successful single-person projects. While it bears a 'HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015955' stamp indicating it was part of a document production (potentially related to the Epstein investigation), the content itself is purely technical and unrelated to Epstein, his associates, or criminal activities.
People (6)
| Name | Role | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Ross | Subject of comic strip |
Character in a comic strip criticized for not knowing programming
|
| Linus Torvalds | Software Developer |
Cited as an exceptional individual who wrote Linux
|
| Anthony Minessale | Software Developer |
Cited as an exceptional individual who wrote FreeSWITCH
|
| Daniel-Constantin Mierla | Software Developer |
Cited as an exceptional individual who wrote Kamailio
|
| Eric Allman | Software Developer |
Cited as an exceptional individual who wrote SendMail
|
| Finance Director | Hypothetical example |
Used in a hypothetical scenario about software specification misconceptions
|
Organizations (4)
| Name | Type | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | ||
| FreeSWITCH | ||
| Kamailio | ||
| SendMail |
Relationships (4)
Linus Torvalds, Linux
Anthony Minessale, FreeSWITCH
Daniel-Constantin Mierla, Kamailio
Eric Allman, ,SendMail
Key Quotes (4)
"WHAT!? ROSS DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT PROGRAMMING! HE WOULD BE USELESS AND NOTHING BUT A BURDEN!"Source
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Quote #1
"Ideally, you should never split up specification and coding. It is a creative process best handled by very small numbers of people working intensively on it."Source
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Quote #2
"“Ah,” says the finance director, “I’ll write a very detailed spec and then we can get someone cheap to just program it.” This does not work."Source
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Quote #3
"many of the most famous projects were written by one man."Source
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Quote #4
Full Extracted Text
Complete text extracted from the document (2,131 characters)
Software 265
[Comic Panel 1 Text]: WHAT!? ROSS DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT PROGRAMMING! HE WOULD BE USELESS AND NOTHING BUT A BURDEN! MY PROJECT IS STATE OF THE ART AND I'M GONNA LET NO VISUAL BASIC PROGRAMMERS NEAR IT!
[Comic Panel 2 Text]: HAHA, ART? COME ON! LIKE IT WOULD BE THAT DIFFICULT TO TYPE ON A KEYBOARD ALL DAY! MY SON IS TEN AND HE DOES IT TOO!
they implement it mechanically. You see, of course, the problem. It will be riddled with bugs because they have missed the creative step of imagining the whole problem and solving it in the round.
This fundamental misconception of software is common in many organizations. “Ah,” says the finance director, “I’ll write a very detailed spec and then we can get someone cheap to just program it.” This does not work. If the finance director has done the creative work of taking a problem and turning it into a detailed specification for the programmer to ‘just program’ – removing any ambiguity and therefore the creative overhead – he will have all but written software himself, albeit in a computer language of his own making. On the other hand, if the specification is a linear list of issues with no creative thought, he will not have reduced the time needed to program. He may have improved the quality by effectively getting a second pair of eyes onto the requirements gathering stage, but this does not help the programming effort itself.
Ideally, you should never split up specification and coding. It is a creative process best handled by very small numbers of people working intensively on it. Of course, there is one big problem with this: some software tasks are huge. Before we look at the science of splitting up a software project, it is worth pointing out that many of the most famous projects were written by one man. I have met many of these people and they are all exceptional – Linus Torvalds, Linux; Anthony Minessale, FreeSWITCH; Daniel-Constantin Mierla, Kamailio; Eric Allman, ,SendMail. Before splitting a project between many people, it is worth considering whether you can give it to just one individual. To do this you
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_015955
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