rp

> "programming is hard, let’s go shopping!".

Awesome.

Perhaps, but you have much cooler followers, ergo you’re cooler than him…

Also, your posts have stirred mild hubbubs before ;> but have never "jumped the shark".

Yeah, I loved the the chess analogy. I’m actually not sure how to interpret what Jeff is trying to communicate. To me it might actually look like he’s trying to communicate exactly what we are now discussing, but he’s doing it a little more discreetly than many of the comments Either way, I sort of get where he’s going with it, but I think the analogies of Rob Conery and his commenters surpasses the arguments of both Jeffs post and his comments. Honestly admitting I take shorcuts myself, and do things quickly because "they have to be done quickly", I really WANT to follow the rules, and I spend alot of time reading up on patterns and methods in order to make that the way I program intuitivly. I think this will evidently elevate my codequality to great heights without necessarily spending more time coding it. As a consequence of quality, the scalability and durability of my projects will most likely be alot better.

I remember learning how to play jazz on the piano 10-12 years ago. Back then I was told to read the rules, learn the rules, remember the rules. Upon doing this, I should throw the rules out the window and play from my heart. The rules would then be the basis of my intuitive technique… I think the same applies here.

I happen to think that the idea of SOLID is, well, solid. And I think that they could be good rules to follow. Though I think that largely they are inherently followed by experienced programmers to an appropriate degree without feeling too much pressure to make sure every last character written conforms.

I have however seen many programmers who believe that their skillset is much higher than it actually is. Typically these are the people who can approach zealot status in their following of rules – even for cases where they don’t completely make sense.

I guess from that standpoint I can understand what he was trying to say with the original post – at least it’s what I took away from it personally.

There were two comments that stood out to me:
First was the quoting of Eric Raymonds "Rules for Unix Programming", where one states "Rule of Diversity: Distrust all claims for ‘one true way’." and the other was :

Good programmers know the rules, and when to break them, and, therefore, say "I need no damn rules!".
Crappy programmers see the good programmers saying that and just repeat them, skipping the first 2 steps.

Thanks for linking to the Rob Conery post. Very well put and a solid analogy. Although the commenter who compared it to chess had an even better one.

Either way, I agree with some of the commenters that Jeff’s intent may not have been to dismiss patterns and practices. Again, I see his point. The problem is how it comes across. The comments in response to his post are actually more upsetting than the post itself.

I was looking at some of the courses and they are great. 3 day course for doing: charts, 10 step lists, guidelines, principles…LOL. There is a reason why agile is called "common sense" development and everyone does it different. Same concept applies here.

Do you want to write code or look pretty doing it? Does your company want to make money or have nice code?

Coming from 3 small companies I work(ed) for, you learn very quickly that all these principles are great except there are things like deadlines and clients don’t give a crap whether you wrote the best framework that can stand the test of time for 5 years.

I agree with the blog post…most developers don’t even know what SOLID and even less are applying it.

The thing that has occurred to me over the last couple of years is that methodologies, principles and practices that emerge are not simply people saying "Look what I invented", but ideas and techniques gradually and naturally forming themselves after being tested and proofed. "We know this works well in a range of projects, so why not write it down and give it a cool TWA (or actually FWA in terms of SOLID)".

I love reading up on design patterns and methodologies, not to follow them word by word, but they have all given me alot in terms of further expanding my programmingskills and the perspective I have on large-scale projects. I’ve been in too many "screw-that-let’s-take-this-shortcut" projects, and seen where they have ended up when changes or updates needs to be done. There is a place for everything, and rules should be applied where they are appropriate. Not every project can be structured in a way to meet the repository-pattern or by using dependency injection throughout, but I’m guessing the patterns could be applied in some parts of the application.

Anyway.. Maybe I should start my own blog instead of writing long comments

Also! Check out Rob Conerys response to Jeff. I think it is pretty spot on:

http://blog.wekeroad.com/blog/patterns-purists-and-sinkholes/