Common Sense

I like your columns, but they’re really all just common sense,” a client told me. He didn’t have a software background, and my columns were his first introduction to systematic ways of understanding software projects. To my chagrin, the net effect of a well-written column appeared to be that he thought software engineering was trivial! The idea that good software engineering “is all just common sense” is one of my pet peeves. If good software engineering were really all just common sense, we should expect to see projects routinely meet their schedule and budget targets and delight their end users. I shouldn’t receive emails every week that describe projects that seem sensible initially but end up failing dramatically.