What Matters Most
When it comes to software solutions there are so many techniques, environments, and languages to get work done that decisions become nearly impossible to do a thorough evaluation of the options. We get into conversations, sometime quite heated, about what options are the best. Often, I know at least for myself, the opinion I have is not based on a fair evaluation, but on my personal experience.
If I were asked what tool set I would use to build any new web app today I would say Dot Net. Not because there are no other equivalent tools, but because this is a code stack I find familiar, it works, and I can get to market quickly. That doesn’t make this a better option or approach.
I think there is probably a better set of questions one should ask than what the best set of tools may be. Here are some of my ideas…
- How long does this solution have to live?
- How big does it need to scale?
- What is the cost of opportunity lost while developing a better solution?
- Does my Company Culture support a write and refactor mindset (get something quick to prove the app, then revise it to work according to the long term business needs)?
- What resources do I have available in hardware, software, development, testing, support, training, skills?
Do you think I am I on the right track here, or do we still need questions like “Is Visual Basic Necessary Anymore”? Get into the conversation by adding your comments below, or write btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben
$$SWYNK$$
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