Posted by NC on 10/13/05 04:48

petermichaux@yahoo.com wrote:
> NC,
>
> I'm not sure if you are thinking along the same lines as
> Nikolas' proposal.

I am definitely thinking along the lines very different from
Nikolas' proposal. :)

> He is talking about the overall application architecture.
> Isn't PEAR only a set of components that can be connected
> by inserting them into an application archeticture?

Exactly. So we can use whichever architecture we want, it
won't change much, since most of the functionality is already
implemented in the components.

> I'm not sure why you disagree with Nikolas' proposal.

Because in my opinion it confuses goals with means. The
goal as I see it is to deliver usable software on time and
within a budget. Reusing code can help with time and
budget. So the company's code base must be well-documented
and be accessible through a searchable central repository.
This, in my opinion, is the important part. Whether this
code base adheres to MVC or any other development pattern
is (again, in my opinion) unimportant.

> As you say, the buyer only cares about the feature set,
> cost and responsive implementation. The last two are
> products of the architecture.

Not really...

Cost is determined primarily by how much time developers
spent on the project, how well they were paid for that
time, and how expensive the third-party components were.
If the code base is centralized, well-documented, and
searchable, developers can save time by reusing code,
regardless of code's and developers' adherence to any
particular development paradigm. If, conversely, the code
base is dispersed, poorly documented, and not searchable,
developers would rather rewrite than reuse...

Responsiveness of implementation, in turn, is determined
by the quality of documentation and the quality of the
implementation staff training.

> I think Nikolas' proposal is very valid because after the
> sales pitch is successful the developers have to sit down
> and type something.

You are obviously thinking in terms of custom development.
But custom development is not the only business model in
software. More often, you have a pre-packaged product that
requires extensive integration with other systems the client
already has in place. So you can only start pitching AFTER
you have the product. And the success of your sales pitch
in this situation is determined by how well you understand
the customer's legacy systems and how well your product can
integrate with those systems. The real work in this case
begins after closing the sale and has nothing to do with
development; an implementaion team is dispatched to the
customer's site to do installation, configuration, database
hookups, data conversions, etc. The bulk of revenue in this
case comes from implementation services, not from licensing;
development is just a fixed cost that needs to be spread over
as many implementations as possible...

Cheers,
NC

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