The Conceptual Age

What a fascinating article I just read. It proposes that we are now in a Conceptual Age where, in my interpretation much of the information or solution is already provided. The challenge is now in combining it all in a way that take things forward and builds on what is known. 

Essentially we don't have to "reinvent the wheel" so to speak so much. We've just got to think about how best to implement and use what tools are already there. Tweaking as we go. 

I like that idea because that's every bit about what I do. To ge things done quickly and to a high standard I don't generally build from scratch I just glue things together with little bits of code or even just documentation. The concept being as long as the end users understand how things work and what they should be doing with a tool then you can make it perfect over time. You've first got to prove the tool fills a need and that people will use it. 

I also like that the examples used are a call center worker and an engineer doing R & D. I've worked in both areas so I've seen both sides. In fact since I was a callcenter guy first who spent his day fixing problems in things that should already work. I think it influenced my approached to software development. Again I just bring a bunch of things together that work independently and have learnt loads of ways to get them working together to varying degress. The whole is much greater than the individual parts in this approach.