I received an email earlier today that I found interesting, and which contained early access to a concept that I would love to hear your thoughts on. The concept that this email wrote to me about was End-User Development, an increasingly more popular way to think about development of software systems. I decided to take a further look at the early access materials and am trying to get a grasp around my thoughts on the topic. Here is some more descriptive text about EUD and what to expect when reading and viewing the materials I’ve linked to below:
As they remark in one of their videos, End-User Development (EUD) is like the ‘atomic bomb’ of computing. It has huge power, which can either be used for good or bad. Bad/wrongful uses of EUD include horror stories like when the Fidelity Magellan fund miscalculated $1.3 billion in their financial records, which resulted in public humiliation and huge loss of share value. Or when the FSA fined Credit Suisse 5.6 million pounds because the design of one of their spreadsheets had incurred substantial errors. Good uses: Microsoft Office has used EUD to solidify its position as the office package of choice as it allows significant customizations and end-user development.
Be sure to take a look and let me know what you think in the comments. As I mentioned, I’m still trying to access and process my thoughts, so some insight from all of you would be extremely helpful.
End-User Development early access materials