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Building Cathedrals, Bazaar's, and Mystery Houses

Posted: Thursday, December 21, 2006 8:45 PM by Barry Gervin
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Almost since software development has been a profession has the practice of software development been compared to the construction industry.

In this sphere of analogy, I often use the contrast in the process of architect cathedrals against the evolution of a bazaar during my lectures on software engineering. I often use this analogy in comparing waterfall-style, can't-have-too-much-uml monolithic architecture with a more organically evolving service oriented architecture.

I've heard others use the cathedral and the bazaar analogy for a few other software engineering comparisons, but I believe the first use can be attributed to Eric S. Raymond's book "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" where he observes how Linux was built with an open source model.

One must be careful not to use Bazaar-style engineering as an excuse for not maintaining a strong engineering discipline and a thoughtful planning process. Otherwise you risk having your Bazaar end up like the Winchester Mystery House, another common software-construction analogy, one you don't want to have your software compared to.

Comments

  • Wayne Murphy December 31, 2006 8:52 AM

    That was a weird place to visit (yes I knew the way to San Jose).

    On the topic of software analogies, I often tell software "engineers" a movie I saw called:

    Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192335/

    Aside from the odd title, it is an interesting documentary about an engineer that doesn't ask enough questions about the project and makes the assumption "I'm an engineer - I should be able to figure this out".

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