Thou shalt have no other gods before the ANSI C standard 1635

Don't know if I'm up to a long ramble on this one, let's try.

A large project (1M lines of code) done well would need a whole bunch of different specialties available to it to work.

Programmer - takes spec, writes code that implements it.

Application Analyst - takes requirements, writes spec that implements them.

S&M - talks to customers, sucks requirements out of them.

System Analyst - considers all of the above and chooses hardware and software to be used to create the product, herds cats.

Architect - makes all the hardware software parts work together.

QA Expert - talks to everyone at all stages of the project, creates test plan, specs the kinds of testers needed, herds cats

Tester - implements the test plans.

Project Manager - gathers leaders of individual sub-projects, herds cats.

Project Lead - gathers (people) resources needed for sub-project, herds cats.

Domain Expert - talks to S&M, SA, AA, teaches them what they need to know to make good decisions, helps herd cats. Talks to QAE, A, PM, PL, helps herd cats.

There are more ... both up the management chain and down.

Note that a lot of the above involve dealing with people, not code. The PM must orchestrate the whole dance and make things work. I've tried to list as many kinds of expertise that come to mind right off the top. I missed all the admin things that are also needed. i.e. a big project needs IT staff buttigned to keep their hardware working. I left out documentation and product literature, etc.

The names of the various kinds of expertise change from time to time of course :-) Sometimes several kinds of expertise live in one person ... if you get really really lucky.

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... Hank