I like to cook. I’m not great at it but I enjoy it. I first really started cooking when my wife was out of town visiting family overseas. I learned very early on that I wasn’t made to follow recipes. Often times I would see a great Pinterest recipe or a Facebook post but, when I went to follow the recipe I found out that I had never quite had the right ingredients.
Tonight I went to make enchiladas. Per usual I was missing nearly half the ingredients. But, after a few well spent minutes I still managed to whip up a dish that I highly enjoyed.
The comparison struck me as I went back to the original recipe. I technology nothing is quite as easy as just following the instructions on a page. From setting up a simple SFTP server to creating a serverless application there is no one size fits all guide.
When it comes to creating a solution for a client taking a similar approach to cooking works quite well. Starting out by identify the clients needs allows you to get a general idea for what you are going to build. After that either using a predefined recipe or plan gets you headed in the right direction. But, at the end of the day there is no one size fits all method. Sometimes you need to throw out an ingredient for another one until the solution is a whole meal.
So, whether you’re making your next meal or architecting an enterprise system always remember, no recipe is perfect. Substitute those ingredients until you find something that tastes great and runs fast.