I already went on my soapbox yesterday on how software development is broken and throwing cheaper labor at the problem is postponing the real core issues and keeping our minds occupied in the wrong arena. I promise if you keep reading this won't be just another software post. Not everyone that reads this blog cares all that much about the nitty-gritty details of technology.
Checking out Miko's blog, I found this post about Richard Gabriel's The Feyeraben Project. The original invitation "to redefine computing" makes a great outline for questioning assumptions about computing and software development as it is done today.
I cut-and-pasted some thought-provoking (and not specific to software) parts below. Sometimes it's time to look at any issue with fresh eyes and maybe consider going against convention.
In 1975, Berkeley philosopher Paul Feyerabend wrote a book called “Against Method,” in which he said:...one of the most striking features of recent discussions in the history and philosophy of science is the realization that events and developments ... occurred only because some thinkers either decided not to be bound by certain ‘obvious’ methodological rules, or because they unwittingly broke them.This liberal practice, I repeat, is not just a fact of the history of science. It is both reasonable and absolutely necessary for the growth of knowledge. More specifically, one can show the following: given any rule, however ‘fundamental’ or ‘necessary’ for science, there are always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule, but to adopt its opposite.
In “The Invisible Computer,” Donald Norman wrote, “...the current paradigm is so thoroughly established that the only way to change is to start over again.”
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