Re: Apple IIGS ROM 1 or ROM 3, which is better?

[pausch@saaf.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <YL2dnddnvY53XAjbnZ2dnUVZ_jmdnZ2d@comcast.com>,
Michael J. Mahon <mjmahon@aol.com> wrote:

> I believe that no project should ever be undertaken unless it can
> be completed by less than 20 master programmers.  And I have enough
> experience with large programming projects to know that they are
> essentially doomed to mediocrity by having any programmers under the
> 95th percentile.
> 
> We have GUIs today because PARC was this kind of environment.
> 
> We have slow, bloated, buggy GUIs today because when it left PARC
> it moved into the "usual" environment.
> 
> Given a choice between a staff of 150 average programmers and 10
> 95+ percentile programmers, I'll take the masters anytime.  (And I
> know that they are a real management challenge.  ;-)

However, more importantly, will the master programmers even be
available for all software projects?  You know they are a real
management challenge -- that of course includes they might quit the
project anytime because they found some more interesting project
elsewhere, and when that has happened to a sufficient amount of your
master programmers, your project may grind to a halt.

The reason we even have software development methodologies such as
OO is to enable the majority of programmers under your 95th percentile
to produce working code within a reasonable amount of time.  If we
were to exclude all programmers except the masters above the 95th
percentile, we don't really need these methodologies - the master
programmers will invent them on the fly as needed anyway.

-- 
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