On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 10:56:44 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
wrote:

Software projects by "professionals" are quit all the time -- there's some
shockingly low percentage of software projects that are ever actually finished
(like, 25%). Even for hardware projects, at least for awhile Tektronix
seemed to be quitting upwards of a quarter of all the projects they'd start.

Usually a problem of poor specification. You cannot design what is
not described. Frequently, success is in the mind of the beholder:
"Oh! I forgot to mention you need to....(gestures made here). You
know what I mean."

In other words, professionalism that fails to rise above rank amateur.

My amateur designs are far more complete and robust than professional
ones, but they are not commercial. They would take too long the first
time (but they always could have been done in the time it had actually
taken to get to shipping).

Tracy Kidder's "Soul of a New Machine" proved how little so-called
professional effort is needed to do a professional job right. I work
with a lot of inventors/entrepreneurs whose idea-to-shipping time is
measured in the single digits of weeks.

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC