The 20 Dumbest Words in Software Development
Brandon McMillon (a friend who I used to work with) has a great post out titled "The 20 Dumbest Words in Software Development" that should be recommended reading for anyone with a career in software development or who is thinking about a career in software development. For anyone managing a software development effort it should be required reading. Brandon worked at Microsoft for a number of year and is the Chief Software Architect for the software company he works for now. He knows what he is talking about.
But back to the point of Brandon's article. The article is all about the false idea that doing things the right way costs more time than just jumping in and ignoring recommended processes. There is this whole myth about not having the time to do things right. Students fall into this trap easily because they experience success no matter how much they ignore "doing things the right way."
Students succeed because a) their projects are really small and b) they are ready, willing and able to spend ridiculous amounts of time on projects. In the world of business and industry projects are bigger, involve more people, and have more finite amounts of time that can be spent on them. Brandon talks about how things work for real on real (and large) projects.
Save a link to his post, print it out for your students to read, and oh make sure you read it yourself.
PS: Brandon is promising a series of posts that look like they will be interesting and thought provoking. I've subscribed to his blog already.
