Comments on: The Big Ball of Mud http://topsecretproject.finitestatemachine.com/2009/03/the-big-ball-of-mud/ Ruby, Rails, Web Technology, Varied Miscellanea Wed, 03 Nov 2010 02:19:02 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: tim http://topsecretproject.finitestatemachine.com/2009/03/the-big-ball-of-mud/comment-page-1/#comment-4543 tim Fri, 21 May 2010 22:44:20 +0000 http://topsecretproject.finitestatemachine.com/?p=25#comment-4543 thats a slippery slope though - if you build to a feature spec, you might loose sight of scalability. I'd actually propose you focus on structural base functinoality, but leave features for later, then build a base architecture that is abstract and truly object oriented. and presto, you're on your way to great software. except, doing things this way require investments in frameworks that aren't immediately visible by business owners, and thus rarely get funded. and so we go back to the old convoluted way of building software feature-by-feature, until it's a BIG BALL OF MUD. ...sigh... thats a slippery slope though – if you build to a feature spec, you might loose sight of scalability.

I’d actually propose you focus on structural base functinoality, but leave features for later, then build a base architecture that is abstract and truly object oriented.

and presto, you’re on your way to great software.

except, doing things this way require investments in frameworks that aren’t immediately visible by business owners, and thus rarely get funded. and so we go back to the old convoluted way of building software feature-by-feature, until it’s a BIG BALL OF MUD.

…sigh…

]]> By: nicholas f http://topsecretproject.finitestatemachine.com/2009/03/the-big-ball-of-mud/comment-page-1/#comment-2 nicholas f Tue, 10 Mar 2009 12:16:14 +0000 http://topsecretproject.finitestatemachine.com/?p=25#comment-2 Definitely. In fact, sometimes following such principles and focusing on simplicity can end with very elegant pieces of code which 'do the job', rather than the grander preconceptions which a mind can build up with preconcceptions of design and architecture. Definitely. In fact, sometimes following such principles and focusing on simplicity can end with very elegant pieces of code which ‘do the job’, rather than the grander preconceptions which a mind can build up with preconcceptions of design and architecture.

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