The lore of delivering software products is a small series I’m writing about processes and best-practices meant to pave the road to delivering great software products.

Jamie Zawinski, as quoted in “Coders at Work”, elegantly summarizes everything that I’m trying to express:

“At the end of the day, ship the f*cking thing! It’s great to rewrite your code and make it cleaner and by the third time it’ll actually be pretty. But that’s not the point—you’re not here to write code; you’re here to ship products.”

This is not a series about programming, using a specific framework or development methodology, although it includes bits of everything.This is a series about improving the way you work, focusing on the project at hand and delivering great software on time, on scope and on budget.

This series encompasses the lessons that I’ve learned by repeatedly hitting my head against problems with projects, people, processes and occasionally, my own stubbornness.

Photo by Damon Duncan

Series articles (list may change):

1. Inception, or what you do before you begin
2. Fraternization, or creating friends and allies
3. Fixed scope, or the holy grail of software development
4. Dangers, or the risks of the trade
5. Genesis, or coming into being
6. Shims, or the tools of the trade
7. Construction, or getting it done
8. Quality, or the other part of construction
9. Spells, or handing over the knowledge
10. Done, or how “the best is better than good”
11. Covenant, or what happens after you’re done
12. Phoenix, or rising from the ashes

I’ll try to publish one every week, starting with this week’s article, “Inception, or what you do before you begin“.

Feedback is welcomed, bad feedback even more.