Thanks for this book, started to read it and I liked the IBM and Palm pilot story. Pretotyping is really an alternative to small value increments. Thanks for sharing it
@Adam, if you read further into the book, I talk about MVPs, Eric Ries, and how they related to pretotypes.
@schevy, sorry I only provide the PDF because the HTML conversion looked awful. Getting another PDF reader should take a couple of minutes.
@Weining, thank you for your feedback, other people have commented that the length is just right and more than enough to get the message across. Sounds good to me - less time writing, more time pretotyping.
Pretotyping is really big in the game design industry. Gameloop Boston (#gl11) discussed prototyping and pretotyping during one of the panels. Companies like Demiurge studios use Flash, Unity, or other game maker software before going on to make a prototype. The Tap Lab created a paper pretotype of their game Tap City before coding the prototype.
I myself have used an old D&D dry erase battle mat to pretotype a game design. The pros at Gameloop got a kick out of that.
"Make sure your building the right it before you build it right." What an elegant way of putting in a software context something that is try of life in general: "it is far better to do the right thing moderately well than do the wrong thing extremely well". Pretotyping will work well where the development org is tightly integrated with other aspects of the enterprise, particularly marketing, sales and finance; not so well in a 'topdown' command and control structure, where development is simply an implementer of cast-iron reqs given by other depts.
well, this book is good for beginners or people who have not been exposed to anything but waterfall, V-model and similar development models as it explains fundamentals and importance of early User Validation. The rest will find it known and obvious though I have seen very few professionals who can indeed can implement this idea right. Unfortunately, you can't be taught by a book how to build and test the products right - just the ideas to stimulate the thinking and a sort of check-list to keep in mind when planning for this.
Awfully right and awfully hard to implement in real life, as the product-organization must have an understanding of this idea. Products that nobody will use not only waste time within the testing, but within all of the company. Your thougts are very close to what Marty Cagan states in his great Book "Inspired". OLLI
Great post. Another book worth reading is "Software Testing: A Guide to Testing Mobile Apps, Websites, and Games" by Mark Garzone. It covers a lot of diverse areas.
Great post. The tester might want to work with the designer or business analyst to give as earlier as possible feedback on the product. It's discussed in the new book "Software Testing: A Guide to Testing Mobile Apps, Websites, and Games" by Mark Garzone found on Amazon.
It's great to identify specific best practices, and I hope you continue to put aggregate them. However, creating a new word was not necessary, as several alternatives already exist: "validation", "verification", "pre-check", and the best in this context, IMO, "pretyping".
Indeed the sequence "pretyping", "prototyping", and "production" are a logical sequence based on the roots of the language:
- "Pretyping": "pre" = before, "typing" means "mold" (and a few related ideas), so the combination means "foreshadowing", "what comes before the mold" (you can verify this word exists);
- "Prototyping": "proto" = original, first, so the combination with "typing" means "first mold"; makes sense that this word was chosen to describe the idea of the first version of something;
- "Production": "pro" = "forth", "duce" = "lead", in the sense of "bring forth into being".
Now "Pretotyping" would be a great company name; just different enough to capture attention. Just like "google" being a misspelling of "googol" is great; a unique spelling, no disambiguation necessary.
But for a concept or technique, "pretotyping" is a new word for an old idea, and hence, makes it seem like an attempt to appear as something new. Which is unfortunate because aggregating best practices related to SaaS and startups, which is what "pretotyping" really is about, is extremely useful, yet the new word makes it sound like a bit of snake oil. Unfortunate.
Sounds like FAD to me
ReplyDeletehttp://thedailywtf.com/Articles/FrontAhead-Design.aspx
Thanks for this book, started to read it and I liked the IBM and Palm pilot story.
ReplyDeletePretotyping is really an alternative to small value increments.
Thanks for sharing it
Just finish reading the Introduction and seems that this book will open some eyes of some developers in my company :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the book.
I didn't read the whole book, but it seems like pretotyping is just another word for minimum viable product (MVP). Am I missing something?
ReplyDeleteCan you also link to a HTML format of the pdf?
ReplyDeleteI managed to kill my PDF reader and somehow still can not read PDFs in firefox directly. :(
Interesting idea. Thanks for the book. To me , reading this pretotyping version is good enough. I would not read the full book:)
ReplyDeleteThanks,
@Adam, if you read further into the book, I talk about MVPs, Eric Ries, and how they related to pretotypes.
ReplyDelete@schevy, sorry I only provide the PDF because the HTML conversion looked awful. Getting another PDF reader should take a couple of minutes.
@Weining, thank you for your feedback, other people have commented that the length is just right and more than enough to get the message across. Sounds good to me - less time writing, more time pretotyping.
Pretotyping is really big in the game design industry. Gameloop Boston (#gl11) discussed prototyping and pretotyping during one of the panels. Companies like Demiurge studios use Flash, Unity, or other game maker software before going on to make a prototype. The Tap Lab created a paper pretotype of their game Tap City before coding the prototype.
ReplyDeleteI myself have used an old D&D dry erase battle mat to pretotype a game design. The pros at Gameloop got a kick out of that.
Read it in one sit, ready for my first pretotype of a web application. :)
ReplyDeleteI just love this site. Has great content for webmasters. Awesome
ReplyDelete"Make sure your building the right it before you build it right." What an elegant way of putting in a software context something that is try of life in general: "it is far better to do the right thing moderately well than do the wrong thing extremely well". Pretotyping will work well where the development org is tightly integrated with other aspects of the enterprise, particularly marketing, sales and finance; not so well in a 'topdown' command and control structure, where development is simply an implementer of cast-iron reqs given by other depts.
ReplyDeletewell, this book is good for beginners or people who have not been exposed to anything but waterfall, V-model and similar development models as it explains fundamentals and importance of early User Validation. The rest will find it known and obvious though I have seen very few professionals who can indeed can implement this idea right. Unfortunately, you can't be taught by a book how to build and test the products right - just the ideas to stimulate the thinking and a sort of check-list to keep in mind when planning for this.
ReplyDeleteAwfully right and awfully hard to implement in real life, as the product-organization must have an understanding of this idea. Products that nobody will use not only waste time within the testing, but within all of the company.
ReplyDeleteYour thougts are very close to what Marty Cagan states in his great Book "Inspired".
OLLI
Great post. Another book worth reading is "Software Testing: A Guide to Testing Mobile Apps, Websites, and Games" by Mark Garzone. It covers a lot of diverse areas.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. The tester might want to work with the designer or business analyst to give as earlier as possible feedback on the product. It's discussed in the new book "Software Testing: A Guide to Testing Mobile Apps, Websites, and Games" by Mark Garzone found on Amazon.
ReplyDeleteIt's great to identify specific best practices, and I hope you continue to put aggregate them. However, creating a new word was not necessary, as several alternatives already exist: "validation", "verification", "pre-check", and the best in this context, IMO, "pretyping".
ReplyDeleteIndeed the sequence "pretyping", "prototyping", and "production" are a logical sequence based on the roots of the language:
- "Pretyping": "pre" = before, "typing" means "mold" (and a few related ideas), so the combination means "foreshadowing", "what comes before the mold" (you can verify this word exists);
- "Prototyping": "proto" = original, first, so the combination with "typing" means "first mold"; makes sense that this word was chosen to describe the idea of the first version of something;
- "Production": "pro" = "forth", "duce" = "lead", in the sense of "bring forth into being".
Now "Pretotyping" would be a great company name; just different enough to capture attention. Just like "google" being a misspelling of "googol" is great; a unique spelling, no disambiguation necessary.
But for a concept or technique, "pretotyping" is a new word for an old idea, and hence, makes it seem like an attempt to appear as something new. Which is unfortunate because aggregating best practices related to SaaS and startups, which is what "pretotyping" really is about, is extremely useful, yet the new word makes it sound like a bit of snake oil. Unfortunate.