Following the Instructions
When I was in seventh grade, my art teacher stressed that any student who followed his instructions would get at least a B—no artistic talent required. He was a 220-pound ex-Marine, and considering that he drove that advice home at least once a week, I was amazed at how many 98-pound seventh-graders didn't follow his instructions and didn't get at least a B. Judging from their work, it wasn't because they were tormented by glorious, conflicting artistic visions, either. They just felt like doing something different.
As an adult, I often see software projects that fail merely because the developers and managers who work on them don't follow the instructions—the software-development fundamentals described in this chapter. ...
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