In the information industry, how does "parasitic development" erode project qual
2024-07-17 / tech
Introduction: Previously, I have written about "puppet consultants" and "puppet sales," and today let's discuss "parasitic development." However, readers should not label themselves hastily; I am referring to industry phenomena.
I. What is "Parasitic Development"?
The presale phase cannot be separated from delivery, the delivery phase cannot be separated from project managers, and the maintenance phase cannot be separated from Baidu... Here are the five major characteristics of parasitic development:
1. Requirement Dependency: Either they do not participate in customer requirement research and rely on the delivered requirements for closed-door development; or they participate for a long time but still cannot understand, so they still rely on the delivery scenario to reproduce. In short, in the early and middle stages, they cannot move forward without delivery.
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2. Platform Dependency: Dependence on Baidu, Google, development communities, external code repositories, AI Q&A... The world's code is a big copy, it depends on whether you can copy well or not.
3. Dependency on Established Knowledge: A developer once told me that they spend a portion of their time and money each year learning new technologies and methods in their field, but such developers are rare. Most, after occupying a relatively stable position in the workplace, rely on established knowledge to make development conclusions with "no other solutions"...
II. How does "Parasitic Development" become the "Invisible Killer" of Information Technology Projects?
If the development phase cannot become the backbone of the project, the disadvantages of large-scale or integrated projects will become immediately apparent:1. Frequent requirement changes: Due to an over-reliance on the delivery of requirements for discernment, many development projects undergo frequent changes, necessitating a high-precision requirement identification and output that is shared by four roles: the client's business needs, the client's requirement issuer, the B-side implementation consultant, and the B-side development consultant. If there is an issue at any stage, changes will occur frequently, leading directly to project delays and increased costs.
2. Reliance on outsourcing and sudden cost increases: Outsourced development has a prominent advantage—considering personal reputation and ongoing cooperation, the efficiency and quality during the coding phase are high. However, the direct impact on the project is that there are no projects without changes, and no projects without maintenance. The act of outsourcing itself disrupts the B-side's autonomous team's control over the project and the development plan, leading to a significant reinvestment of manpower in familiarizing with the development path of the previous team during the change or maintenance phase.
3. A significant drain on the delivery team: An excellent project manager, under the philosophy of "better too much than too little," faces a grim delivery process. They must take care of the novices in the team while constantly monitoring the development progress. For a team that is responsible for both management and results, almost every project manager has been through the wringer.
4. The butterfly effect of projects: When coding, overemphasizing personal style or writing non-standard code results in a plethora of bugs; during the testing phase, going through the motions with the attitude that if problems arise, the primary responsibility does not lie with their phase, ultimately pushing the flawed design into the business... These issues lead to frequent firefighting during delivery and even within the R&D, necessitating frequent code modifications, a never-ending cycle of problems, and exhaustion for both the client and the service provider, with the company paying a high cost for it.
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In the era of AI large models, how can developers survive adversity?
I've heard about Alibaba's new employee, "Tongyi Lingma," who is familiar with over 200 programming languages such as Java and Python. It assists programmers in developing new projects from scratch, refactoring/optimizing code, and writing unit tests. It can deeply analyze code and context, quickly pinpoint syntax errors, performance bottlenecks, and other issues, and provide specific optimization suggestions, available 24/7...
However, it cannot match human capabilities in terms of initiative, creativity, thinking power, and emotional warmth. For example, requirement identification, requirement analysis, system design, team collaboration, and the construction of creative ideas are areas where it falls short. Therefore, if human programmers do not want to be easily replaced by AI, they must become insightful, proactive, judicious, and coordinated in their senses and thinking.
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In conclusion:To escape this predicament, developers must confront the issue head-on, tackling it from multiple angles such as enhancing the business capabilities of developers, optimizing project management, and continuously reinforcing technical learning, thereby severing the parasitic grip of parasitic development. Only in this way can we ensure the high quality and efficiency of information technology project delivery. Otherwise, if the phenomenon of parasitic development is allowed to spread unchecked, it will lead to the decline of the entire industry.
From the WeChat public account: ERP Home
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