Anju Vallabhaneni talks about the best software development myths in the business

For a field that is complex to say the least, it probably won’t come as a surprise to read that there are more than a few myths doing the rounds when it comes to software development.

There are several reasons for some of these myths. Sometimes, it’s because software development is actually complex. Then, on the other hand, it’s sometimes because people think that the industry is managed by magicians who can make a change at a whim.

Suffice to say, neither is true. Anju Vallabhaneni is a person who knows this more than anyone, and through the rest of this page we will talk about some of the best myths that he has come across during his career in the field.

photo Gerd Altmann via pixabay

Myth #1 – Developing software comes at a huge expense

Over the last few years the cost of software has dropped immensely. In fact, if your business were to pick up a general piece of software and only initiate a couple of customizations, you might be surprised at just how cheap it becomes.

Of course, there are extra cost implications when it comes to completely custom software. As this is built from scratch, and requires a complete set of developers, the costs can rise quickly and soon become completely unaffordable for the standard small business. However, the message here is to make sure you don’t tar all software development with the same expensive brush. There are some which are completely affordable to businesses.

Myth #2 – Changes are easy to make

This is perhaps one of the surprising myths. Even though we are well and truly in the era of technology, some software isn’t as easy to customize as people might think. We’re most definitely living in the period of “anything is possible” but in the case of customizing software, sometimes it’s very difficult.

The reason for this difficulty is that a seemingly simple change to the Average Joe actually has significant repercussions on the entire system. These can’t be ignored, they have to be accommodated, and this not only takes a lot of time from a development point of view but also testing.

As such, a “small” change should never be regarded as a simple one, unless a developer has already looked over the code and given it the OK.

Myth #3 – More developers = faster project

Here’s another surprising myth. In most industries, the more man power involved in a project the quicker it becomes. In software development, there’s undoubtedly a ceiling here.

Sure, having three developers instead of one is likely to supercharge a project. Once you start getting into the large projects, there becomes a limit. It’s very regularly counterproductive, for the simple reason that the project has to be split up. This means that there can be a communication overload, whereby it would be much quicker if one developer tackled one section, rather than two attempting to communicate their way around it.

Author: James Daniel