-Max

-Max

-Max

And yeah, I’ve been thinking more about the subject too, since then. That’s always been something I’ve thought about, it’s nice to hear and see other people’s thoughts on it, particularly when they’re sane thoughts.

-Max

And thank you very much for your comment on my blog: A Fresh Opinion. That was very insightful.

-Max

-Max

-Max

I realize that when I’ve been interviewing programmers recently I haven’t been asking questions that reveal if they have that spirit of adventure or if they are just coding drones. I want the guys with the spirit!

-Max

Love the idea of your blog, love the name. I did not know Theta was the EIGHT letter! Isn’t it great?

-Max

The way the application “evolved” was: they came up with a “requirement” but it wasn’t quite right or not fully defined, so once it was built it had to have changes made. The earlier programmers were not very skilled themselves (the tools and language they used were “poorly known” to them) so they didn’t code in a way that was easy to refactor or modify. The result is that today we have a monster.

And now I have the joy of gradually upgrading this monstrosity bit-by-bit because they can’t afford a complete re-write. Oh well, I guess it keeps me on my toe trying to figure out how to turn the Bride of Frankenstein into a beauty queen

And yeah, I totally understand what you mean about MUs and the right Whys.

-Max

When I finished M1, computer manuals “glowed” and I could read and duplicate.

When I finished the Data Series course, my thinking dramatically improved. I could normally spot the Why much faster.

Both less MUs and the right Whys cut through much discussion and avoided controversy. This lead to personal certainty and helped me as a technical lead.

-Max

-Max

I’ve seen this cycle of fixing problems by introducing new problems and then wondering why the program is a piece of garbage. It makes the code hard to maintain and almost impossible to add new features to.

I also find that when the individual doesn’t fully understand an area then he or she get into “controversy,” arguments and endless discussion. It’s like the arguments people have about coding standards: “The opening curly brace must go on the next line” versus “No way, it should go on the same line.” They don’t understand that consistency is the important thing, they’ve never had to maintain code that was written by several programmers all following different coding, naming and formatting standards - nightmare!

Understanding tends to blow away the arguments, fixed opinions and “controversy”.

-Max

I have total reality on your observations here. Elevating the “hack” or “quick fix” to the role of error finishes a shift in reality for me that has been waiting to happen for a while. Thanks.

All of us programmers know that at some point software of any size will need to be completely scrapped and re-written. I have always said this was due to the foundation no longer supporting the added stories of the latest remodel. While this is still true, not introducing errors as you add on will let the program grow taller before the wrecking ball need to be called in. Also, more intelligence and foresight when designing the software to begin with can also forestall this. But I believe the arbitraries we introduce are much more important than I previously recognized.

Of course, a cure for featureitis would also help as added features can act as arbitraries as well. Many programs grow well beyond their original purpose or try to be everything to everyone.

- Brad