How to bring your art and your science to your OSS

In the last two posts, we’ve discussed repeatability within the field of OSS implementation – paint-by-numbers vs artisans and then resilience vs precision in delivery practices.

Now I’d like you to have a think about how those posts overlay onto this quote by Karl Popper:
Non-reproducible single occurrences are of no significance to science.”

Every OSS implementation is different. That means that every one is a non-reproducible single occurrence. But if we bring this mindset into our OSS implementations, it means we’re bringing artisinal rather than scientific method to the project.

I’m all for bringing more art, more creativity, more resilience into our OSS projects.

I’m also advocating more science though too. More repeatability. More precision. Whilst every OSS project may be different at a macro level, there are a lot of similarities in the micro-elements. There tends to be similarities in sequences of activities if you pay close attention to the rhythms of your projects. Perhaps our products can use techniques to spot and leverage similarities too.

In other words, bring your art and your science to your OSS. Please leave a comment below. I’d love to hear the techniques you use to achieve this.

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