Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Programming Should Be a Spectator Sport

I'm working to a deadline right now (yes, I have time to write a quick blog post when a good idea comes my way!) and am keeping track of my method and what I'm doing / producing and my assumptions and bugs generated as I go. I'm using MindJet MindManager, one of my favorite pieces of software (if not my favorite indeed). As I go, I am iterating and going down the road and making notes and fixing things and logging what I did. I'm tracking my progress in a document other than the code. I think if someone were to write a web service / site that sat on top of my MindManager file then it could be interesting for my project managers, team, or customer to look in and see what I'm doing. As I create new objects in the file, it would be a running log of what's going on. They could write things into what I'm doing and say hello, correct me, direct me and answer questions.

Bottom line, I'm going down the road HARD to make a deadline and deliverable and making A LOT of assumptions plowing the path. I'm prepared to review them LATER, but not now because I am busy and it would take a long time to "catch someone up". But if they were watching or could watch my "timeline", then they could see what I had been doing and we could share that information.

For now I will work in MindManager and plan to share my assumptions and questions later; after delivery.

This process could be improved.

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