Real World

Look out your window; the one embedded in your wall, not your computer screen, there you see the Big Room.

It's somehow related to the Big Room. (No, I can't enter the big room. It'll kill me!)

It's a mythic land where nobody gets too upset if a semi-colon or a parenthesis is missing. Where you want to go when you feel like Getting Out.

Also, a rather concrete land where theory crashes hard into realities, like the limits of today's computer hard- and software. Can refer to leaving the hallowed halls of academia, lured by the call of pre-IPO options.

I always thought that Real World referred to an MTV show (Music Television) about people who couldn't code their way out of a paper bag, but are being followed by cameras anyway.

Hmmm... You're over my head here. What platform has "walls" with "embedded windows"? The architecture we use implements Walls, Cube Walls, Doors, and Three Quarter Partitions. -- Eric Herman

I always thought "The Real World" meant non-Smalltalk projects with incomplete Unit Tests coverage... -- Phl Ip

nah, the Real World is any place where everyone writes in Visual Basic because it's obviously the fastest, stablest and easiest way to get software to market.

The Real World is also where 75%+ of all software projects fail.

While believable, is there a source for this?

It's not believable. The figure is 91%. www.pm2go.com

It seems to be folk wisdom in the industry. On www.webteam.cc it is claimed that the "average" (which is undefined) project comes in 90% over budget and 120% late.

One way around this is to no longer define deadlines or budgets, but streams. You have some amount of money and some amount of time in order to do a stream of work. When either the work, money or time run out, the project stops. This is similar to the Open Source way and the XP way (project can be terminated at any time). However, it is often in counterpoint to the Real World, which is full of people with digital watches and Palm Pilot calendars.

More about XP can be learned from Extreme Programming Explained Embrace Change.

The Real World is where money comes from.

Or where it goes!

The Real World is everything there is outside The Matrix.

"I just found out there is no thing as the Real World" - John Mayer (Pop Singer)

Me too! I don't know why nobody told me earlier. I create my own Phenomenological Reality and so does everybody else.

To quote John Mayer again, "'Welcome to the Real World', she said to me, condescendingly." This seems to be a feeling that comes across when I try out agile practices in any Monolithic Culture and fail for whatever reason. "It can't be done", they say. Well you know what I think? "Wake up! The Real World can become whatever you make it, stop accepting and start thinking!"

Also: the place which is always a disappointment; e.g. "In the Real World socialism can never work."

90% over budget and 120% late? Is that a real statistic? Damn. The folk wisdom I applied for my whole career was: "Ask the programmers at the beginning of the project, then double it.". I found it applies to all projects, even home construction/improvements. I wonder what human process makes this ratio so predictable.

Could it be that the real thing we have to build is not what we thought it would be when we began? Could it also be because estimates are based on wishful thinking and unsubstantiated schemes whereas real code is based on what it takes to make sure It Works. -- Donald Noyes

Can mean "the last place(s) I worked."

At one point, I had a new manager who had just come from an analyst position at a large company. At some point in an overmanaged project, they told me it didn't matter how much money we spent; the client did not have any kind of budget for the project, and would pay however much was charged. I knew the client better; I objected and told the manager that didn't make any sense, and he said,"Welcome to the Real World." A few weeks later, the project was ended prematurely, partly due to overspending. -- Jesse Millikan