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Software Craftsmanship: The New ImperativeSoftware Craftsmanship: The New Imperative

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Software Craftsmanship: The New ImperativeSoftware Craftsmanship: The New Imperative

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Is the "Good Enough" Approach Useful for (M)any Projects?

The market-driven "good enough" approach is a reasonable option for a BigCo developing shrinkwrap consumer software. After all, consumer software tends to have a nice lock-in effect—by the time you've learned it well enough to start experiencing the "trivial" problems, you've invested so much time that you can't really face switching to another consumer product. Especially since it's likely that all consumer products will have been developed with the same approach.

Interestingly, a SmallCo can't get away with this strategy. They lack the marketing budget of the BigCo and hence have to produce better software if they want to compete. Similarly, anything other than shrinkwrap consumer software is evaluated carefully before purchase. The lock-in effect doesn't occur because users haven't invested heavily in the product before determining the real nature of the "trivial" problems.

So, yes, the "good enough" approach may work for the BigCo, but realistically, how many developers actually work for a BigCo? Not many. My guess is that even when we consider all shrinkwrap software developers, they're still a small minority in the software development community. It's a fallacy to promote a niche approach to software development as something that's useful for the majority of software developers.

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Last Update: November 17, 2020