My family loves the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Ted Elliot and Terry Rossi wrote the script. Johnny Depp does a wonderful job as the pirate Jack Sparrow.
There is an incredible story behind this story that Rossi relates on the excellent Web site about screenwriting that he runs with Elliot. Lens Magic is the title of the column, but you have to read through it to believe how incredible serendipity and destiny can be.
Software, especially enterprise software, is more of a necessary evil than a joy. Web 2.0 has a tenet that say we should not only aspire to ease of use but joy of use. I got a Christmas present that shows what it takes to make a piece of software that is just a bundle of joy.
World in Conflict is a brilliantly conceived real-time strategy game from Massive Entertainment and Sierra. But I look at the credits and artists, playtesters, and QA people outnumber pure developers. Typically in the industry that is unheard of. You always need more developers. How else can you fix all the bugs that the first fifty disconnected developers inject into the code?
I wish business software would be conceived with as much care as an entertainment title like this one. After all, the latest thinking on Software Engineering is that it is less like Mechanical Engineering (creating reusable components that help you build very predictable things) and more like Movie Production (assembling well-known pieces into new and creative combinations).
Although it is new to me, it includes some classics from the 1980s.
