ongoing · Doing It Wrong

vito — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:00:48 -0600

Tags: development enterprise java software system tim_bray xml

“When an author of XML says that Java and XML are doing it wrong, you're probably doing it wrong.”

Carmack releases open source Wolfenstein for iPhone

vito — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:17:23 -0500

Tags: development iphone john_carmack wolfenstein_3d

Quotation

vito — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 21:15:26 -0600

Found: http://interconnected.org/home/2007/12/28/wrapping_up_2007 scroll down to #4 in that that's the refactoring one "A codebase should be its own source repository: seeing what the code was like a year ago shouldn't be a check-out from source control, but archeology." that's preposterous wha stupid haha the rest of the explanation says "my brain can't understand elegant solutions so it's better to mash together a series of hacks" I think it's a fascinating idea. That's how you get serendipity and side-effects and emergent behavior. this guy is not an architect-type coder, he's a grunt-work, fill-in-the-blanks coder hahah emergent behavior is not a good thing in software development it's generally called "bugs" I think the problem is that *you* are a grunt work coder, and he's gone all astronaut architect and you just can't comprehend his vision. no, there's a reason he referred to it as archaeology, and that's because he's digging himself a big hole "Refactoring code means we say there are certain behaviours that are important, which are those to be kept, and other there aren't. I say, who are we to say what's important." we are the programmers who define what the system we're working on should and shouldn't do, it's exactly our jobs to say what is and isn't important yeah it's not like this is just some magical stuff that we've discovered it's fucking code it was written by other programmers it's either right or wrong hey, don't fix that bug, it might turn out to do something awesome 3 years from now! bug fixing = abortion well too bad you didn't use a vcs and save the old version that's just archaeology nothing beats digging around in some code and coming up with a piece of code that makes you go "what the FUCK does THIS do?" I think the idea is that it'd be better to treat existing code as a black box, working solely on inputs and outputs it's absurd it doesn't work that way There have always been ghosts in the machine. Random segments of code, that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated, these free radicals engender questions of free will, creativity, and even the nature of what we might call the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in darkness, they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space, they will group together, rather than stand alone? How do we explain this behavior? Random segments of code? Or is it something more? When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does a difference engine become the search for truth? When does a personality simulation become the bitter mote... of a soul?

Tags: irc_quote architecture black_box development i_robot matt_webb programming refactoring software

Musings of a Software Development Manager » Blog Archive » A Tip on Agile Documentation

vito — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 13:29:11 -0600

Tags: business development documentation eels hovercraft monty_python quotation software testing

“To check whether people are actually reading long technical requirements or design documents, liberally sprinkle the text with ridiculous quotes, like 'My HoverCraft is Full of Eels.'” — Elizabeth Hendrickson