A bridge, building, or piece of software may exist for many years. Or, as often happens in the case of new software, be scrapped before it is put into use. My mate Wayne, a professional software developer for over 12 years, has worked on several projects which were canned before they were completed. In a world of ever changing requirements and circumstances, ‘it’s not unusual’ as Tom Jones would say. Software development can take months, even years of effort, so scrapping the results is a waste. To counteract this, we have libraries for software reuse, design patterns and templates to avoid reinventing the wheel.
But why just reuse the product template or pattern? Why not template the tasks the artefact underwent during its lifecycle? By extending the theory of function, structure, and behaviour, there are eight tasks in an artefact lifecycle. Continue reading “The eight tasks in an artefact lifecycle”