About Qupe

Plain by design

Qupe Ltd is registered for business and domestic software development (SIC 62012) and is registered at Newton Hall, Town Street, Newton, Cambridgeshire.

The design goal here is a system that somebody new can hold in their head. Not because simplicity is a virtue in itself, but because almost all the money a system costs is spent changing it after it is built, usually by somebody who was not there, and how quickly they can understand it is what that costs.

In practice that means choosing the plainest thing that solves the actual problem, resisting the services and abstractions that would be interesting to build, writing tests as part of the work, and recording decisions with their reasons so the next person can tell a deliberate choice from an accident.

Scope is agreed in writing before work starts, including what is out of it. A handover means documentation, environments, access and the source code actually transferred.

We will also say when something does not need building, or needs building smaller than you were expecting. That is usually the less profitable answer. Where a piece of work needs a specialism we do not have, we will say so rather than learn it at your expense.