Re: Do you use formal project planning?

> > My apologies to anyone thinking this is non Informix related item. I am > posting this here because we are an Informix shop and the detractors > keep stating that because we use an RDBMS like Informix there is no need > for formal project planning. You know, why do we have to have a problem > spec, a design spec, etcetera. We are just a small shop. > > I am soliciting responses so I can quantify. Do you use formalized > procedures in project planning and development? > Not as much as I should and I regret it and have reason to. Just because you can turn on a dime - and probably especially because you can - there's no excuse for NOT planning what you're going to do. I especially recommend: data model standardized program shells (skeletons) standardized naming conventions standardized update procedures - these can and perhaps should be SPLs standardized make/rcs layout formal code inspection process and let's not forget a roadmap that indicates where you are going This makes maintenance down the road SO much easier and in fact increases your ability to turn on a dime down the road as well. If everybody cuts loose on their own your in for a mess. Setting up these things might take a month or six weeks - but saves a good 50% of frustration time later on. When I need to write new code now I have a make file into which I have to enter two lines - I have some standardized libraries and globals that I can count on - some of my programs are less than 20 lines long even though they do some complicated stuff merely because I've been somewhat careful on this particular project. cheers j. _____________________________________________________________________________ Jack Parker - Hewlett Packard, DMD/IS Boise, Idaho, USA jparker@hpbs3645.boi.hp.com Back in Boise _____________________________________________________________________________ If anything can go wrong, fix it. To hell with Murphy. _____________________________________________________________________________ Any opinions expressed herein are my own and not those of my employers. _____________________________________________________________________________