Re: [gentoo-user] Re: alternative to thunderbird?

[Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com>]

>> > kdepim devs are just making a simple classic mistake that's
>> > been made over and over and over again. Developers do not learn from
>> > history, every time this mistake is made the team doing it thinks
>> > *they* will be different.
>>
>> What is that classic mistake?  Is it the shark jumping thing?
>
> No, the mistake is the mistakes that are always made on the second
> big project. You'd have to read "The Mythical ManMonth" to truly do it
> justice (it's a really good book for developers btw), but in a nutshell
> it goes like this:
>
> For your first big project, you will proceed very slowly and carefully
> and not take on too much, as you know you know nothing. You will
> probably make a project that does one thing and does a decent job of it.
>
> Enter the second project. Buoyed by the success of the first, most devs
> will try and build something that is waaaaaaaaaay beyond their
> capabilities - I mean, how hard can it be right? It will over-reach, be
> unbuildable and timeframe estimates will be bat-shit crazy insane.
>
> The attrition rate of second big projects is rather large.
>
> Enter the third project. Humbled by the experience of the second and
> still feeling quietly (and realistically) confident by the first, most
> devs will settle down to something useful, of wide scope and still
> achievable.
>
> This same rule seems to apply to almost every project a bunch of humans
> could tackle.

Brilliant explanation.  Thank you for taking the time to write this out.

- Grant