| Vladimir Levin 2006-06-26, 10:01 pm |
| > > > > Isaac Gouy wrote:
> I think I understand your opinion, what I don't understand is why you
> think that example supports your opinion. (Really I'm saying it's no
> where near as good an example as you seem to think.)
Well, the reason I felt it was a good example, or at least worth
posting about, is that I don't think the particular scenario I
described was especially likely to be raised in a semantic review.
Especially if you know the app we are working on, there are so many
little intricacies along these lines, that quite a few are bound to be
missed. I ran into another one today. We had a requirement to direct
allocations to downstream facilities. I and another developer raised a
question about whether directing to units was supposed to work (answer:
no) and this triggered our customers to think of what happens when you
try to direct to a unit in the upcoming story in question - Now they
may add a story for that, I don't know. So there are a lot of ways that
things can interact. When we developers bring these kinds of things up,
it's because we hit a test or a piece of code that raises the question.
It's not something we think of abstractly, and I think even an expert
is likely to miss these kinds of interaction without having a solid
substrate to deal with. Now, developers are not the only ones who can
bring to bear this kind of feedback. QA people also are excellent
sources - "What happens when I try this weird combination of options?"
I'll try not to repeat myself any further, because it's ok for us to
disagree and I don't want to just keep saying the same thing over and
over again... but for what it's worth, that's how I see things: That
when you are working with the code or the app directly, you are likely
to see things that are much harder to come up with in the abstract kind
of environment where you're discussing things in general with people in
a room or drawing diagrams on a whiteboard. Not that those activities
aren't necessary - the requirements have to come from somewhere, but
just what I've said before, that the developers' feedback is a valuable
aspect of the whole feedback loop. If that doesn't make sense, then I
apologise if I've wasted your time. I do think my example is of some
value, though I'm by no means trying to say it's something earth
shattering.
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