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There’s much discussion of different analogies for software development. Some like to think of it as engineering such as building a bridge. Others like to compare it to building construction. The Pragmatic Programmers compare it to gardening. But none of those really resonate with me.

James Robertson compares it to movie production. Now that’s an interesting concept. We always hear about movies missing time/budget projections. Producers are the financial sponsors. The director has creative control. Various tradespeople (craftsmen?) do the acting, camera, sound, editing, special effects, etc. Most of those are organized around unions or guilds. Each movie is unique, but may be formulaic, and the cost of copies is miniscule compared to the cost of the development in the first place. I think this analogy has legs.

It gets me thinking about a guild or union structure for developers. Could it work? A few years ago during the dot-com boom it certainly wouldn’t, but I wonder if it would these days. Fred Brooks talked about a 20X difference in productivity between developers in The Mythical Man Month and Pete McBreen talked about compensating developers based upon that in Software Craftsmanship. You see an even broader range among actors, yet they are all members of the Screen Actors Guild. It sure would be nice to be a Mel Gibson equivalent in a Software Developers Guild :-)