Have you ever wondered what it is that slows software projects? What is it that makes some projects miss their deadlines and others succeed?

What is the key item that puts spanners in the works on some development endeavours? Surely there is something, that if we handle can prevent these key failures in the software industry.

I’ve been wanting to write something on this topic for quite a while now. Artificial Intelligence or AI as it is known was initially made popular by Alan Turing last century.

It then seemed to die down in popularity and recently has made a come back.

I am interested in writing about it because I believe it is filled with a number of myths and misunderstandings. To fully explain what I am talking about I am going to have to delve into some very basic human questions. I am going to have to go where modern day science as kept away from in droves for whatever reason. This sound controversial? Well it is! You see when we talk about artificial intelligence we need to get our terms defined first. (Oh and here’s another one, defining terms. Isn’t that obvious? Define ones terms or get them defined? No it’s not! Quick test: What is the definition of Computer? Do you know the definition right away? No? You need to look it up!)

Well I’m cruising 36,000 feet above the Atlantic cramped in economy class with better things to do. I came across this article in CIO about developers and what they get up to.

The gist of the story is that developers usually have their own agenda which is at variance with the employer’s interests. I looked back on my experiences in this line and saw many occurrences of this.

I started my first computer job in 1985, July to be exact. Just after completing what was called “National Service”.

Lucky for me I got a good amount of computer experience doing my National Service. I learned RTL2, RSX 11M the PDP Operating System, and got to do some numerical optimisation algorithms that were tested in real life!