The Why and How of Software and Production Development
February 12, 2014Sometimes, I take a step back from mashing together 2 things that were never meant to work together—for the 100th time today—and wonder how anything ever gets done. What cool thing was I trying to build before I got sidetracked with this tedious mashing?
This is just a small aside in an interesting article about the issues in modern programming. It’s something I struggle with often when programming. There are two mindsets when it comes to creating software: the why and the how.
The “why?” concerns itself with what should be built and what it should be built for. This comes from customers, product designers, idea conceivers, anyone who finds a problem and thinks of a way to solve it.
The “how?” is when you delve into code and make the solution. This process concerns engineers, interface designers, qa testers, project managers. It concerns anyone who is working to achieve that solution.
When the two become too separate, conflict starts arising and the resulting work becomes poorer.
If someone concerned with “how?” doesn’t know “why?” then it’s hard to get excited about the work you’re doing. If someone concerned with “why?” doesn’t know anything about what goes into the “how?” then it’s hard to get excited about the solution created.
The best and most exciting problems to work on are ones where you’re involved with both the why and the how. Your motivations are strong and your expectations are reasonable.
