Interim Solutions' Longevity

In "The Longevity of Interim Solutions," Klaus Marquardt discusses the reasons why interim solutions are created in software development, and how they can become permanent fixtures. Interim solutions are created to solve immediate problems, whether they are internal to the development team or external and visible to end-users. They are often considered a draft to be changed sometime and do not follow the standards and guidelines that shaped the rest of the code. However, because interim solutions are useful and widely accepted, they tend to remain in place and acquire momentum. When problems arise with an interim solution, it is unlikely that there will be provision for an update that brings it into line with accepted production quality. To deal with this problem, developers can avoid creating an interim solution in the first place, try to change the forces that influence the decision of the project manager, or leave it as is. The best way to overcome interim solutions is to make them superfluous, to provide a more elegant and useful solution. #softwaredevelopment #interimsolutions #projectmanagement #maintainability #standards #programming #softwareengineering