[Catalyst] Why scaffolding? Validation and Learning

Max Afonov max.afonov at mlb.com
Thu Aug 17 22:38:59 CEST 2006


Totally agree, and I guess this is why they call it 'scaffolding'. The 
word brings with itself the notion of the stuff being temporary.

The need for scaffolding only goes away in an ideal world where 
management gets excited about ideas. However, these days, it's hard to 
pitch an idea unless you have a cool proof of concept to show off along 
with it. There's been so much vaporware that people no longer believe 
that something is cool unless it can be poked with a stick and taken for 
a swing.

On the other hand, prototyping isn't the only area where scaffolding may 
be useful. In large projects, especially ones that are well managed, 
different parts of the application are assigned different priorities. 
Scaffolding may enable developers to defer thorough implementation of 
functionality that is less important or plays a purely supporting role, 
and focus on stuff that's higher on the list. In the case of 
Catalyst-based applications, most projects are so modular that 
scaffolding can be easily swapped in and out at any time.

peter at dragonstaff.com wrote:
> Yes, this is important. As you say, there's a commercial aspect to
> pitching for work and showing prototypes. If you're using an Agile project
> management methodology like DSDM, then doing several iterations of
> modelling and delivery is essential in order to migrate closer to what a
> customer needs rather than what they initially want. This only works for
> small-medium projects, with larger ones in the long run you need a well
> designed system or it will croak as the complexity increases and the code
> base degenerates.
>   


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