Tom DeMarco acaba de publicar un excelente artículo en donde presenta algunas reflexiones con motivo de cumplirse cuarenta años de la famosa conferencia de la OTAN en la que se presentó por primera vez el término ingeniería de software.
DeMarco hace una profunda autocrítica del papel que jugó su libro Controlling Software Projects: Management, Measurement, and Estimation en el establecimiento de una obsesión colectiva en torno a la predictibilidad y el control, aspectos que se tornaron en algo demasiado relevante dentro de la ingeniería de software.
A continuación, reproduzco algunos de los párrafos más importantes:
"...strict control is something that matters a lot on relatively useless projects and much less on useful projects."
"Can I really be saying that it’s OK to run projects without control or with relatively little control? Almost. I’m suggesting that first we need to select projects where precise control won’t matter so much. Then we need to reduce our expectations for exactly how much we’re going to be able to Control them, no matter how assiduously we apply ourselves to control."
"Consistency and predictability are still desirable, but they haven’t ever been the most important things. For the past 40 years, for example, we’ve tortured ourselves over our inability to finish a software project on time and on budget. But as I hinted earlier, this never should have been the supreme goal. The more important goal is transformation, creating software that changes the world or that transforms a company or how it does business."
DeMarco concluye su artículo con una clarificadora reflexión:
"Software development is and always will be somewhat experimental. The actual software construction isn’t necessarily experimental, but its conception is. And this is where our focus ought to be. It’s where our focus always ought to have been."
