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There is a way to avoid it but I think software development is unique in that we haven't been able, so far, to establish what the state of the art is. And so it seems like, as you say, every company is in its own cave and the only way to have the freedom to have your own ideas is to start your own cave.

It's a little bit backwards in my opinion. Instead of it being commonly accepted that we should be checking mathematical models of our systems we have "senior engineers," debating whether unit tests are a waste of time. We have developers either being trendy or forcing others to pretend they are. And trendy changes in each ecosystem (BigCo vs TrendyCo).

Companies can, and should, change. The AWS teams managed to see the formal specifications are a good idea and have been better for it since. You can be sure there were highly experienced senior developers who resisted their introduction with the best arguments they could muster. Even very smart people want to stay in the cave and watch the shadows.




> The AWS teams managed to see the formal specifications are a good idea and have been better for it since.

Can you elaborate on that?


If you can spare an hour, I recommend Leslie Lamport's talk at React San Fran 2014:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCRqE59VXT0

Where he shares some anecdotes from Chris Newcombe about Amazon's adoption of TLA+.


I can't now but eventually. Thanks.




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