4 ms·

This is basically reinventing Steve Yegge's analysis in [1] of programmers into "conservative" (risk-averse, prioritize safety) and "liberal" (accepting of risk

by rntz 11y ago

This is basically reinventing Steve Yegge's analysis in [1] of programmers into "conservative" (risk-averse, prioritize safety) and "liberal" (accepting of risk, prioritize expressivity), except less polarizing (because it doesn't involve political comparisons) and less thorough. Oakes also calls for reconciliation, while Yegge tips his hand as a hardcore "liberal". [1]: https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/KaSKeg4vQtz https://plus.google.com/110981030061712822816/posts/KaSKeg4v... They're both vaguely accurate but break down if you try to credit them with too much explanatory power (as Yegge does, IMO, but Oakes doesn't seem quite as reductionist).

clock_tower 11y ago
Both, to me, sound like reinventions of ESR's "the cathedral and the bazaar". I like those definitions and the things they imply: bazaar-style work is simple, easy, and fast, it doesn't require much capital, but it doesn't scale past a certain size -- and it's not going to produce an architecture that can withstand firebombing 700 years after ground was broken for it. I think most people can say pretty accurately whether they're in the "open for business by Tuesday" model of software development or the "700 years and undreamt-of threats" model... But if your product becomes a surprise hit, that's when you refactor your chaotic bazaar into a clean, legible, highly maintainable cathedral.
- rntz 11y ago
  Cathedral and Bazaar are about different ways of organizing projects; Liberal/conservative or Type B/Type A are about individual programmer preferences. So they're not the same thing, although there's some amount of sympathy between them - one might expect liberal/type-B personalities to be attracted to bazaar work and conservative/type-A personalities to prefer cathedral work. But I don't know to what extent this is true, or testable.
astine 11y ago
It's interesting that Yegge places Clojure into the 'conservative' camp whereas the author of this post places it into his equivalent of the 'liberal' camp. Personally, I think that says more about Yegge than the author of this piece, but I suspect that it might also say that the distinctions that each is making might be subtly different.
- rntz 11y ago
  I think it simply reflects that the distinctions each is making are, to a great degree, subjective and up for debate. See, for example, http://blog.ezyang.com/2012/08/is-haskell-liberal-or-conservative/ http://blog.ezyang.com/2012/08/is-haskell-liberal-or-conserv..., which argues that Haskell of all languages is, in a sense, liberal.

by rntz 11y ago

clock_tower 11y ago

Both, to me, sound like reinventions of ESR's "the cathedral and the bazaar". I like those definitions and the things they imply: bazaar-style work is simple, easy, and fast, it doesn't require much capital, but it doesn't scale past a certain size -- and it's not going to produce an architecture that can withstand firebombing 700 years after ground was broken for it. I think most people can say pretty accurately whether they're in the "open for business by Tuesday" model of software development or the "700 years and undreamt-of threats" model... But if your product becomes a surprise hit, that's when you refactor your chaotic bazaar into a clean, legible, highly maintainable cathedral.

rntz 11y ago
Cathedral and Bazaar are about different ways of organizing projects; Liberal/conservative or Type B/Type A are about individual programmer preferences. So they're not the same thing, although there's some amount of sympathy between them - one might expect liberal/type-B personalities to be attracted to bazaar work and conservative/type-A personalities to prefer cathedral work. But I don't know to what extent this is true, or testable.

astine 11y ago

It's interesting that Yegge places Clojure into the 'conservative' camp whereas the author of this post places it into his equivalent of the 'liberal' camp. Personally, I think that says more about Yegge than the author of this piece, but I suspect that it might also say that the distinctions that each is making might be subtly different.

rntz 11y ago
I think it simply reflects that the distinctions each is making are, to a great degree, subjective and up for debate. See, for example, http://blog.ezyang.com/2012/08/is-haskell-liberal-or-conservative/ http://blog.ezyang.com/2012/08/is-haskell-liberal-or-conserv..., which argues that Haskell of all languages is, in a sense, liberal.