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What software can learn from moving 11,500 miles of 1880’s railroad
Software engineering managers and product owners should study the unification to standard gauge railroad that took place in 1886.
The what, you ask? Railroads?
Bear with me, and come along for a dive into post civil war history, only to learn how software companies can apply the lessons of history. Admit it, you’re a little curious?
Oddly, software is the only engineering discipline that works in this somewhat immature way.
History
Before 1886, railroad gauges (width of the track) in the U.S. operated mostly on two standards. Most of the country, including the great Transcontinental Railroad, used the popular U.K. and European standard of 4ft 8.5”. See my story about that. The southern states, however, used a 5ft gauge. We believe the slightly wider rolling stock better fit the bales of cotton transported throughout the south. At that time, this difference in gauges didn’t matter because there were few rail links between the north and south, on account of them, you know, not really liking each other.
In the reconstruction after the civil war, trade increased across the Mason-Dixon Line, but of course, northern rolling stock couldn’t run on the southern track, and vice versa. At the meeting of the…