The Book
Help Is on the Way
After working on over one hundred solo coder projects over the last forty-seven years, I recognized that solo coders needed help to meet the extraordinary demands they faced. The present book describes the FAST framework I developed to help solo coders quickly and logically build successful software applications. If you are not a coder but need to work with or manage coding experts, this work will help you understand the advantages of the FAST Solo Development process.
Programmers who struggle with single-programmer projects and those who help them perform their duties have specialized needs but have nowhere to turn for help. There needs to be more information on how to construct applications by a solo coder since the software construction process by a single programmer is profoundly different from software produced by a team.
Most software methodology literature addresses development issues for a team or teams of programmers and does not address solo coders’ needs because most of that literature has its roots in solving large, multi-team commercial software applications with large user bases. Using those multi-team methodologies for solo coder projects is overkill, like building a backyard shed with the same technique used to build a skyscraper. The entire purpose of FAST Solo Development is to present a step-by-step method that addresses the unique needs that a single programmer faces at every level and step of building software for a small group of users.
Who Can Use This Book?
Groups with limited numbers of programmers
Many small companies or departments of large enterprises have few programmers available. Sometimes, they have only one programmer. Many organizations have decentralized their programming support by placing programmers within the business or operational organization. Instead of having many programmers in a centralized location, they place small groups of programmers throughout the company. The downside is that the operational departments need more experience in building software applications. They are not IT departments. FAST Solo Development brings a clear and concise methodology for successful application development for decentralized programming support that uses solo coders.
IT departments with no solo coder methodology
Some organizations still need to set up a procedure to handle solo coders. They treat solo coder projects as tasks rather than projects and may not provide the help and resources that the solo projects need. All software projects have complications, no matter their size or how many people are building them. FAST development shows organizations how to build software successfully for solo coder cases.
Also, some IT departments do not use solo coders because they have a team-only approach to building software. Many IT departments have devoted (out of need) a significant effort to developing methodologies to build software systems using teams. FAST provides a model for solo coders.
Organizations that do not use solo coders
Many organizations may need to learn about solo coders’ value and therefore do not have solo coders. The book helps organizations see the value of solo coders and shows how they can incorporate them as part of their organization.
Companies that want to reduce risk
Software development has a diseconomy of scale, so the smaller the project, the lower the risk, as outlined in The Mythical Man-Month by Brooks (1975). Organizations can reduce risk by dividing larger team projects into smaller solo coder projects.
Companies that hire single contractors
Many firms hire a temporary single-contract programmer to do a project; that’s how I created an income for thirty years. Using a single-contract programmer is an excellent solution for building software applications. (No prejudice here.) Because the contractor becomes part of the customer organization, communication is direct with the client. This book teaches companies how to utilize better and manage these single-contract programmers.
What This Book Is Not
FAST Solo Development is intended for something other than coding purists or perfectionists, those seeking the most polished means of building software applications. Instead, it is for the soldiers, sergeants, and lieutenants battling for their career lives in the software development trenches.
This book presents the essentials to the people who build solo software applications daily. Most rapid development methodologies are too resource-intensive for solo programmers and those who help them do their job. They need more time to implement a complicated process to build solo programmer software applications. FAST Solo Development provides a step-by-step, concise, and systematic way to create software applications built by a single programmer.
FAST Solo Development also is not a code-like-hell strategy. The concept behind FAST development is to create a process where the programmers have the information, tools, and support required to maximize their purpose, and thus FAST coders construct software applications with minimal effort and distractions.
And FAST is not “cowboy coding,” either. FAST development is not undisciplined and wild. Instead, it is a highly structured and controlled code-like-a-cheetah approach: brilliant, well-planned, efficient, and fast.
