NaNoWriMo

When I started the National Novel Writing Month contest I wasn't sure what to expect.  After all, I didn't have a story in mind, no plot had immediately come forth pleading that it needed to be written, and most importantly, I didn't have the foggiest idea if I could do it.

Well, I am a ways into it now and I must say that the pep talks they gave on the site were correct:  the story does have a tendency of writing itself.  With only the opening sentence to work with the story slowly started to evolve and grow.  Characters started coming together, pasts started being revealed and the tone of the story started to come out.  (Now if only I could figure out some way of making these notes count towards my word total.)

It was really strange because, in many ways, that's how I've always done my programming as well.  To be honest, I was never one for getting all of the requirements together before building the application.  I would start with the framework and start building the rest of the application in pieces.  Sometimes this caused me no end of trouble because I had built the framework in such a manner as to cause endless rewrites due to a specific requirement.  I learned, however, and I developed better frameworks.  I learned to "steal" code from the best of the applications and re-use it where necessary.  In essence, I started with the barest of bones and built up the application in stages, much like what is happening with the novel.

Some might call it eXtreme Programming, while others might just lump it in with the generic term Agile Development.  All I can say is that it worked for me.  It does not work for everyone.  Indeed, the vast majority of people cannot do it this way because of the unknowns and the, to be honest, the fear of failure.  I've failed at so many things in my life that failing at writing a computer program, something I love doing, just never crossed my mind.

Managers and team leads need to understand that there is not just one type of developer.  You can't go to the store and pick up a box of Generic Developers (now with Vitamin B12) and have them substitute for your Toasty O Developers,  Supervisors, leaders of people, need to understand that there is a wide range of people and that some people, very few, can be left on their own to build the application.  Indeed, interfering with that development process is sometimes more harmful than letting them run loose.

Does this mean that you have an entire team of highly motivated, highly charged, highly independent developers at your disposal?  No, you don't.  The key is finding those that are and nurturing their growth.  Studies have been done with regard to programmer productivity, and anecdotal evidence abounds with stories of Software Heroes.  Suffice to say that they are relatively rare, so the odds of finding more than one or two on your staff is unlikely.  Which in some ways is a relief.

 

P.S.  For those that want to know, the opening sentence is:

“The screaming didn’t start when the lights went out; it only started when the first body hit the floor.”