I think that it is completely reasonable to question the applicability of any operations research conducted by people who aren't themselves intimately embedded in the current practice of the fields they're commenting on.
I believe that because I find there to be a lot of dynamics in software development that are seemingly completely unaccounted for in the literature. I admit that this may be because I'm unfamiliar with the current edge of the research being done, but then again, research does tend to lag rather far behind the state-of-the-art, and our field moves quickly.
Is that really true in terms of organisational structure, communication patterns, team sizes, management structure, or best practices?
Tooling has improved significantly across the board but, for the most part, it has improved and refined existing patterns and processes rather than enabling radically different/novel practices.
The two major differences, IMO, over the last 15 years have been in 1) remote work and 2) the ops space.
On 1) Better tooling has really made remote work viable in many places it didn't use to be. And many companies are starting to take advantage of it.
On 2) the real improvement here the power shift from ops to development. When I first started working in software I was frequently blocked from experimenting by the ops team. These days Ill fire up a few dynos, try out my idea, and then if it works bring the ops team on-board. The workflow itself has significantly changed.
Comments
I think that it is completely reasonable to question the applicability of any operations research conducted by people who aren't themselves intimately embedded in the current practice of the fields they're commenting on.
I believe that because I find there to be a lot of dynamics in software development that are seemingly completely unaccounted for in the literature. I admit that this may be because I'm unfamiliar with the current edge of the research being done, but then again, research does tend to lag rather far behind the state-of-the-art, and our field moves quickly.
"and our field moves quickly."
Is that really true in terms of organisational structure, communication patterns, team sizes, management structure, or best practices?
Tooling has improved significantly across the board but, for the most part, it has improved and refined existing patterns and processes rather than enabling radically different/novel practices.
The two major differences, IMO, over the last 15 years have been in 1) remote work and 2) the ops space.
On 1) Better tooling has really made remote work viable in many places it didn't use to be. And many companies are starting to take advantage of it.
On 2) the real improvement here the power shift from ops to development. When I first started working in software I was frequently blocked from experimenting by the ops team. These days Ill fire up a few dynos, try out my idea, and then if it works bring the ops team on-board. The workflow itself has significantly changed.