Re: Fwd: Re: [Gnumed-devel] GNUmed brochures (was When will GNUmed be ready)

[Hilmar Berger]

Hi,
On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 10:10:27 +0100
Karsten Hilbert <address@hidden> wrote:

> On Sat, Dec 17, 2005 at 03:11:53PM +0800, Richard Hosking wrote:
> > I think perhaps coding should stop and the "evaluation" part of the 
> > cycle should be looked at
> Coding for 0.2 doesn't need to stop for evaluation to start.
> Just start evaluating and document what you find.

I guess that you are right and we don't have to stop right now. I understand 
that you are eager to get v0.2 ready ASAP. 
However, I believe Richard wanted to express that you will have to reserve time 
for planning/evaluating your code/specs etc. I'm not quite sure If you claim 
that time not spent coding is wasted time. This idea might be ok right now 
(i.e, before v0.2). IMHO, if we are really goint to have a development process 
in place for GNUmed we will have to assign time exclusively to 
planning/evaluation in the future. This means that coding should not start 
until the planning (or evaluation of the prototype, depending on the 
development model) are done. 

My boss keeps telling a story of a man who met two guys trying to cut a huge 
tree using a saw. Both were covered in sweat and working furiously. The man 
watched them for some time, than said "I guess if you would just stop for some 
minutes and sharpen you saw blade, the work would be done much faster". Answer 
of one of the two guys: "We can't stop, we need to cut the tree and have to 
saw."

So, I don't believe stopping now and then in order to do an evaluation step 
would be a bad idea, even if this means that you can't code during this period.

Hilmar