majorbloodnock (6/3/2008)
I must admit I'm scratching my head a bit here, regarding today's and yesterday's topics for discussion. The thing is that an analogy is there to illustrate a particular point, yet the analogies being put forward appear to have no such reason for their existence.Subscribers can certainly praise the housebuilding analogy for the number of cross-over points it possesses, and detractors can certainly criticise it for those points where the analogy fails, but the real test of the analogy is whether or not it was useful in demonstrating the point someone was making. Yet no-one's making any points that need illustration. It's almost like the tail wagging the dog.
Surely, in these discussions, we're not really examining the analogies themselves, but instead exploring the parallels between software development and other careers, such as civil construction and law. If we strip away the analogy part, wouldn't that make said exploration rather more effective?
Sorry if this sounds negative, because it isn't meant to be. I really like the idea of finding different places where what we in IT do is practiced in different ways, not least so we can cherry pick best practices.
I have to agree. The whole point of making analogies is that they explain something (which isn't understood) by comparing it to something else (which is understood).
Almost everyone has experienced a building of one sort or another, and is familiar with the idea of foundation, structure, rooms with various function, doors, windows, wiring, pipes, etc.
Very few are familiar with the inner workings of legal documents and cases (if they are, it's generally with the Hollywood version, which is almost as accurate as the version of computer programming in such marvellous, documentary movies as Swordfish). That lack of familiarity makes it a poor choice for most situations where an analogy would be helpful.
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