Screened out... definitely not a preferred customer

I once tried very hard to purchase "ISO/IEC 42010 IEEE Std 1471-2000 Systems and software engineering - Recommended practice for architectural description of software-intensive systems"

I "failed."

I needed to join IEEE (How much does it cost? That information was not prominent on the home page), and pay further for digital subscriber privileges (How much does that cost?). I decided I didn't have time to be their customer, and my customers seem pretty happy with my software description and design as it is right now. So IEEE screened me out as a customer.

However, given 40 years of hand-wringing about poor software construction practices, ISO/IEC 42010 probably ought to be issued under a Creative Commons license.

Personally, I believe that the best software is produced by developers who are committed to excellence, have excellent communication skills, and have great enthusiasm for the project. I suspect these three qualities render "formal development methodologies" moot.