Software Development is People! PEOPLE!

If you've not seen the movie Soylent Green, you're missing out. Well, not really. Anyway, this blog is about software development. Intrinsically, software development is about invention. It is not an assembly line process. You don't just take component A and plug it into component B. You are creating art, or the lightbulb, or anything else that is about the inventor.

First, software development is about the person, not the process. Do you think Edison used the appropriate process to create the light bulb? Or Whitney had to use XP to create the cotton gin? No, they used what worked for them.

Second, great software development cannot be done with mediocre programmers. The lightbulb couldn't have been invented with 20 mediocre programmers. Instead, it required one creative genious. The same is true with gravity, relativity, etc... Often, a great invention is reached by two people at the same time, but rarely, if ever, does a group of average joe's create an invention worth mention.

Software development cannot be done with average associates, no matter what the process. That is just the nature of the problem of invention. It requires great minds to be done correctly.