[TheForge] Re: guardrails and handrails

[Andy Vida]

Gladish Family wrote:
> 
> On the other hand, if you're not making your rate and paying for materials,
> might as well call it a hobby.

	Precisely.

	When I designed AT&T's ALLIANCE teleconferencing system, I
	prototyped it usong an object-oriented tool called PTech.
	It employed a top-down approach, which is the only really
	good way to prototype non-trivial systems.  You begin with
	a "goal", which is to answer the question of what the system
	ultimately does.  This is sort of a stupid approach in that
	things are not that simple, usually, but I had to work within
	the constraints of the tool.  So I had a problem defining the
	goal.  Was it to establish a conference?  To conclude a 
	conference?  To schedule one?  Then one day Max came to me 
	and said the answer was easy: the goal is to generate a bill.  
	And so it was true.  Without the bill, it is as you say, 
	nothing more than a hobby.