A recurring argument on software development boards, often with a backstory involving a developer teaming up with an idea-man and then having second-thoughts about the equity split, debates the relative value of ideas versus implementation. Who is worth more to the team: The one who did the hard work of coding, or the guy who thought up the web app in the first place?
The predominate opinion is usually that the implementation is extraordinarily valuable, while the idea is close to worthless. "Ideas are cheap" the posters often claim. "There are an endless number of good ideas out there."
"Anyone can think up good ideas. Few can put them into practice."
So I ask you: What value are ideas? If you were a developer that teamed up with someone who had a clever idea for a web app, even perhaps just a couple of interesting twists that give it a potential competitive edge, how much value would you give their contribution?
This is a very contentious issue in the software development community, and it's one I plan on addressing in an upcoming entry.
P.S. This entry uses an inline IFRAME for a survey, and it may not appear in some aggregators or RSS readers. If that's the case, visit the entry directly.
Creative thinkers are a tremendous asset.
There is the not so trivial issue of transforming the idea into cold hard reality. In order to do that, there is an almost endless string of good ideas that must be generated, implmented, and tested. Each and every generated idea and its implementation must be totally coherant with reality.
"Anyone can think up good ideas. Few can put them into practice." is dead on. Ideas are cheap and claims they are good are even cheaper.
This idea-implementation is reflected in the whole outsourcing scenario. If we were not outsourcing programming to India would the programmers there be turning out these applications for our customers? I guess not! So I think a clear idea is worth more than the implementation itself. You can always replace the implementation but not the original idea.
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Dennis Forbes is a Toronto-based software architect. While focused primarily on the .NET and SQL Server worlds, Dennis frequently ventures outside of this comfort zone into game development and image processing. He has been published in several industry magazines, has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and has been interviewed by NPR.He is a vice president and lead software architect at an innovative New York City hedge fund back-office services firm.
Dennis has been working on solutions for the financial, telecommunications, and power generation markets for over 15 years.