The aim of this paper is to explore some of the ways in which we think about the development of information systems by drawing upon arguments articulated within the philosophy of science and the sociology of technology. It argues that many of these approaches operate on the basis of a reified and sociologically restricted view of technology. Drawing upon recent work in the sociology of technology the paper proposes a more thorough-going analysis of the social practice of information systems development and discusses examples from knowledge engineering and requirements analysis to illustrate its argument.