During the last half-century, we revise the terminology related to the early days of a software design process. Hopefully, when we ignore dogma, the goals are the same. We, the developers, must create tools for clients that work to improve process. Pragmatically, the process is a bit messier than the ideal suggests it should be. Step 2 then Step 4, then maybe circle back to Step 1 or 3. That’s life isn’t it?

Instead of getting client requirements in December as a means of starting the project, I got handed hundreds of data table definitions. With my experience I could read these data tables and read the data presented in other formats and reverse engineer the process. I could do this while simultaneously seeing flaws in the not-a-design. How?

How can I look at hundreds of tables and do this?

Accounting systems, invoice generation, inventory systems have been around for decades. The architecture remains consistent. They are based on analog processes well established by accounting traditions. The buzz words are ERP and CRM: Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Resource Management (or Contact Resource Management). These systems date to the earliest days of commercial software. The first real test for “computer” systems – I put computer in quotes followed this progression:

1.       Calendar Calculations including celestial positions. These calculations help ocean navigators know their position on the globe. Think: Astrolabe, even Stonehenge. Estimate of eclipses, moon phases, and seasons. 

2.       Census tabulation – That’s where Herman Hollerith made is mark at the turn of the 20th Century. His thing eventually became IBM. 

3.       Ballistic Trajectories – how much energy does it take to launch a thingy from here and land there with precision. Hey, it was World War II, we wanted to hit a few targets. This stuff tied into the post-war Space Race. During the space race, we used early computers to aim a rocket at the Moon.

4.       Accounting.

Our team is expert at seeing data structures and workflows for back-office business functions such as managing funds, managing documents, and managing process. We explore the use and role of a data table in an Oracle relational database. 

My father, when talking about writing said: Maintain Parallel Construction. Parallel construction techniques lend to punchier writing. Picture a dynamic preacher delivering a sermon with rhythm. You can anticipate; the preacher pulls you along – or so I recall, been a while since I stepped into a church for a sermon. 

We create these patterns deep within the buried infrastructure of code for the power it brings later in construction. These techniques improve efficiency. These techniques reduce the risk of errors. You don’t accidently refer to the wrong foreign key, the wrong table.

The early work was good and accurate enough for us to start. We delivered a preliminary model and framework to the client by the first week of January 2022. I might have been rude and horrible, but we delivered a remarkable framework and first pass at the application before the end of the first week of January 2022.