Let’s say that you have a software project that’s under severe time pressure. Let’s say that this deadline is so tight that you already know it will involve many late nights of black coffee and frenetic programming. What can you do to make this process go faster? I honestly don’t know, since
correct answer will depend on one’s individual circumstances. However, I can tell you how many programmers do respond under such circumstances. They decide to save time by skipping over software planning and design phase, and immediately start coding away.
To an inexperienced or otherwise undisciplined programmer, this seems to make sense. After all, finished product is what truly matters, right? The customer doesn’t care about flowcharts, class diagrams or software architectures. All they want is something that works.
It seems to make sense, but it’s a foolhardy approach. That way lies madness. We’ve all heard that an ounce of planning is worth a pound of cure, but in world of software development, this adage is often forgotten.
If a real estate developer needs to get a house built quickly, does he save time by skipping over architectural design phase? Does he decide to dispense with blueprints, and just start laying down concrete? Of course not. He knows that results would be chaotic, and that work will progress more slowly without careful forethought and a concrete plan.
Yet that’s approach that many people take when it comes to software. They decide to just start coding away, thinking that this makes software development process more efficient. On fairly simple projects, this might work. On anything of moderate complexity though, such an approach is doomed to fail. Sure, you may save time at first. However, without a concrete software plan and a carefully considered design, problems are bound to catch up with you before long. Many of these problems won’t become clear until testing phase comes around, and by then, it may be too late.
