Sunday, January 08, 2006

Building Progress

In just two days, the house across the street went from having no second floor, to having one in place. I don't know about you, but I find this pace impressive. Especially considering this was over a weekend.

I know that in the programming world we borrow quite a few metaphors from the construction industry. While we talk about plug-ins, they actually do plug stuff in. Heck, we even "build" our programs from source code.

One question I've always had is whether or not any of the practices they use in construction could be applied to software development. They have hundreds of years of experience dealing with topics like component standardization, job estimation, project scheduling, labor specialization, etc.

Seeing as our field is so young, comparatively, you would think we could learn from a craft that has so much overlap as ours. Occasionally I've browsed Amazon and my public library for just the right book on construction - but have yet to find the right text. Though I do plan to keep my eye out for one.

I, for one, can't wait until we have a Home Depot for computer components. Just like a builder can walk in there and buy a new sink and drop it into their house's kitchen, I'll be able to buy a new blog component and just plug it in to my app.

--Ben

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