Software As Enterprise

There are many approaches to software, and here on the wiki we are given to use metaphor, method, and lots of theory and logic and great polysyllabicisms in our discourse. (Nice word, eh? I just made it up: feel free to use it wherever you like.)

Software is above all else a human enterprise. Humans consume software, and humans create it. Right now, the big crisis in our industry is about the rather dramatic imbalance between demand and supply.

There are lots of caricature positions on this crisis. There are pragmatists, scientists, mystics, engineers, architects, extremists, and so on. Advocates often seem to forget that developing software is fundamentally a human enterprise. It's not about mysticism, or about logic, or about guaranteed step-by-step releases, or about minimizing ludicrous demands, or about achieving science.

The software enterprise is about being a supplier who satisfies her consumers while simultaneously satisfying herself. -- MichaelHill