CFConversations 46, Roundtable 16 - The Duct Tape Programmer vs. The Architecture Astronaut

CFConversations - an Adobe ColdFusion and CFML podcast - Episodes

In the final episode recorded at CFObjective 2010, here's one of the sessions from the conference, a panel discussion called The Duct Tape Programmer vs. The Architecture Astronaut, where we discuss the balance of getting things done without a lot of planning vs. doing a lot of planning what you are going to build before you starting building it. The emcee is none other than former co-host of the ColdFusion Weekly podcast, Matt Woodward. Our panel members are:

• Simon Free
• Peter Bell
• Dan Wilson, and
• me, Brian Meloche

This session starts with a skit. I'm not in the skit. Matt's the narrator, Simon's the boss, Peter's the "Duct Tape" guy and Dan's the "Astronaut". At the end, the consultant that you hear is Mark Mandel. This panel discusses a "get'er done" kind of developer or an obsessive planner trying the architect the perfect system. The discussion soon turns into a discussion about failed projects, lessons learned and best practices each of us use (or would like to use). Over the last two years, I've had several requests wanting me to be interviewed for the podcast (and I'm willing to do that... I just haven't found an interviewer). That doesn't happen this time, but what you do get to hear a lot more than normal, since I'm not the emcee in this one, I give a lot of my own views and share some experiences. That said, I had to bleep out a few things I said in the session, but not any details that are missing from the experience - you still get the gist of what I was talking about. This episode was recorded on Day 1 of CFObjective, April 21, 2010. This was an interesting session that I think you'll enjoy. The audio quality, especially at the beginning, is not so good, but by the time we get into the panel discussion, the quality improves, so if you don't like what you hear at first, try to stick it out until the panel begins. Run time: 1:05:11