Customers rule

I develop commercial software which is critical for our customers' success. In this effort we always take decision in favor of the customer. The customer rules!!!   Many times the decisions are not of great liking to the developers and we get into heated arguments with the PMs and leads arguing that we should do this feature or we should use that technology. Sometimes we become over-passionate about fixing some bugs which gets reproed in arcane situations. The PM's generally know more as these are the folks who do all the research on customer requirements, usage scenarios and they are right most of the times.

But this does not mean that the developers are wrong. I was greatly inspired by the following piece from SICP

"I think that it's extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out, it was an awful lot of fun. Of course, the paying customers got shafted every now and then, and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines. I don't think we are. I think we're responsible for stretching them, setting them off in new directions, and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all, I hope we don't become missionaries. Don't feel as if you're Bible salesmen. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don't feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What's in your hands, I think and hope, is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it, that you can make it more."

Alan J. Perlis (April 1, 1922-February 7, 1990)

So there exists no monarchy is software development, its democracy and customer's rule as much as fun does. So lets get going and have all the fun we can afford......

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• Anonymous
  January 24, 2006
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