tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628985022531866193.post8215678743896638777..comments2024-02-12T17:37:05.629+00:00Comments on The OldWood Thing: The Battle Between Continuity & ProgressChris Oldwoodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18183909440298909448noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628985022531866193.post-31384387705820496072013-09-25T21:04:38.278+01:002013-09-25T21:04:38.278+01:00I've started looking for buy-in from the team ...I've started looking for buy-in from the team before adopting some changes like this because, as you say, if your teammates are not behind you you'll just make things worse.<br /><br />I also struggle with deciding whether some changes are really that valuable or not and so look for confirmation from my teammates that it's really worth embarking on. They may not know, but by gauging their reaction I can at least get a feel for whether it should just be dropped.Chris Oldwoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18183909440298909448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6628985022531866193.post-2064949678315699592013-09-22T19:55:56.651+01:002013-09-22T19:55:56.651+01:00And once you've modified your own preferences ...And once you've modified your own preferences of style and language/library features to use you have the rest of your team to convince.<br /><br />I've found the size of the team makes a lot of difference. Even in an established project if the team is small (maybe up to 4 developers) there can be a lot of flexibility to change the style and features used from one release to the next. But with a large team it's much harder to get a consensus so either the project gets locked into an old fashioned style and using old libraries and tools, or a small number of developers push forward without bringing the rest of the team with them which can give great short term gains but can lead to maintenance problems later. This becomes a built-in drag on improvements. Handling it becomes an organisation or training issue almost as complicated as the original technical issue.<br /><br />As mainly a C++ developer it's interesting how fast various places are adapting to C++ 11.Carl Gibbshttp://www.carlgibbs.co.uknoreply@blogger.com