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Mods: missed that the post linked to is actually a repost of an article written in 1996 because almost 30 years later it still rings true to some orgs i've been working with.

Can we change the (2021) to (1996) please?




They could tag it 2026 too. I bet anything that all 36 points will still be true. Or 2036, 2046, etc.


Also the source should point to the author’s site.

“Classic Mistakes”, Steve McConnell https://stevemcconnell.com/articles/classic-mistakes/


For some additional context on why the new list has fewer items. From the parent link:

> Here are my nominations for software’s top 12 classic mistakes.

Additionally:

> To make the list of classic mistakes even more useful, in 2007 Construx consultants update the list of Classic Mistakes based on Construx’s work with hundreds of clients since 1996. The following mistakes were added:

- Confusing estimates with targets

- Excessive multi-tasking

- Assuming global development has a negligible impact on total effort

- Unclear project vision

- Trusting the map more than the terrain

- Outsourcing to reduce cost

- Letting a team go dark (replaces the previous “lack of management controls”)

These additions and changes produced a total of 42 classic mistakes.

Construx then conducted a survey to determine how frequent and how serious these classic mistakes are.

“Software Development’s Classic Mistakes 2008”. (PDF) https://www.construx.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/CxWhiteP...


That’s only a limited subset of the mistakes, and the article is linking to the correct source on archive.org.


Sorry, I thought I was following the guidelines correctly:

> Please submit the original source. If a post reports on something found on another site, submit the latter.

(I also didn’t realize that the content didn’t match. Mea culpa.)




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