Eric Brechner, err… I. M. Wright, authors one of the best blogs on development that I know of. (I’m working on a concise blogroll of development inspiration.) I. M.’s column has been published within Microsoft for many years. I didn’t realize that it was public until recently. I suggest that all new software developers read through the archives. To paraphrase Dr. Burrus, it’s the sort of wisdom that you don’t appreciate until a year or so later.
I. M.’s latest is about the incredible value of finishing. He calls is ‘shipping’. I have seen venture capitalists call it ‘execution.’ It’s all the same thing.
I’ve been in software for many years. I am always impressed by the power of releasing software. When you start a project, you think that lots of details of your plans matter in some way. Once you ship, you understand that those things didn’t mattered much. The important thing was simply the release.
The latest I. M. Wright column is about finishing services versus client-only software. The basic message is that most of the challenges of service development are not new. There are new challenges related to large numbers revealing corner cases and to deployment issues. Those of us who have made software used by thousands already know about large numbers and corner cases. Those of us who have shipped services, including websites, understand deployment challenges. His latest column is written to espouse to Microsoft teams that they should never delay releases due to ‘new challenges’ because they aren’t new. Just release it.
If you need further encouragement (and have read this far), here’s another. You can follow how software is made within Microsoft by watching public conduits for clues of Microsoft’s actions. I’m not talking about press releases or product leaks, which are words not actions. I’m talking about watching the larger picture of what people are talking about. I. M. Wright is one of those conduits.
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