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What's going on with all the Uncle Bob hate nowadays? I last heard about him ~6-8 years ago when people were preaching his sentiments about clean code and TDD.
by sydd 6y ago
What's going on with all the Uncle Bob hate nowadays? I last heard about him ~6-8 years ago when people were preaching his sentiments about clean code and TDD.
I agree with some of his stuff, e.g. he was the one who convinced me how important tests are.
Also the blog author is exaggerating in lots of places e.g.:
"Safer Languages: The ‘Dark Path’." In the linked article he says "It’s not the fact that Swift and Kotlin are statically typed that has me concerned. Rather, it is the depth of that static typing." (I myself don't agree with Uncle Bob, I think nullable types are an awesome thing)
- henricao 6y agoWait, why do you consider this article "hate"? It gives many examples of supposedly bad advice and makes a point to say they are wrong.
- ifFxhF938 6y agoHe's voiced support for Trump, which is why he has no idea about anything programming-related anymore.
- trianglem 6y agoName one product he has successfully created. The dripping self victimization is disgusting.
- zarkov99 6y agoHe as written many useful books and identified a core set of principles for good design. That is much harder than being a cog in the building of a successful product.
- anthonygd 6y agoThat's an entirely circular argument and doesn't prove anything about Uncle Bob. Question: Why should I listen to Uncle Bob? Answer: Because he wrote a book telling you what to do. He's got some un-controversially good opinions but he also has some opinions that are just plain stupid. Since his opinions don't compile and aren't testable, it's not easy to rate their over all value.
- zarkov99 6y agoIt would be circular but for the word useful, which implies that, at least for some people, including me, some of what he said compiled and worked..
- count 6y agoAre we sure they're good design principles? Have they been used to design and build something successful? I think that's the source of consternation: he preaches, and has religious fervor, but what has his principle set built (even if it's not him doing the building!)? I honestly don't know the answer there...but it's definitely not obvious. It frames his arguments are 'just trust me', which rubs a lot of people wrong.
- zarkov99 6y agoNot all of them, but the SOLID stuff is pretty, well, solid.
- dang 6y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly breaking HN's guidelines and ignoring our repeated requests to stop. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- gred 6y agoI heard he said something positive about Richard Stallman once. /s
- zabzonk 6y ago> What's going on with all the Uncle Bob hate nowadays? Sensible people have always hated him and his bullshit - what products has he ever produced? I remember when he started posting his nonsense on Stack Overflow - boy, did he run out of there with his tail between his legs.
- jancsika 6y agoHm, I just checked the user page for an "Uncle Bob." It looks like he had 6 accepted answers out of a total of 10. On all but one of the accepted answers a lot of the comments are simply kudos. Plus on most of his non-accepted answers, he has comments thanking him for his answer. If I had judged StackOverflow by this user page alone, I would probably would have been persuaded to use StackOverflow. :) Where's the "tail between his legs" post you are referring to? https://stackoverflow.com/users/73476/uncle-bob https://stackoverflow.com/users/73476/uncle-bob
- zabzonk 6y ago> Where's the "tail between his legs" post you are referring to? I didn't mention a post. He came to stack overflow, posted a few answers for which he obviously expected instance acceptance, and then, once he realised that no-one particularly wanted anything to do with him, immediately disappeared.
- jancsika 6y agoI don't find evidence for the claim that he expected instant acceptance for any of the posts he made. What's your evidence for that claim? I also don't find evidence that "no-one particularly wanted anything to do with him." Especially given that the majority of his answers were the accepted answer, why do you claim this? Finally, what's the relevance of him "immediately" ceasing his posts? Users of crowd-sourced services have all kinds of usage patterns for all kinds of reasons. Frankly, I find fatuous to notice a sudden lack of use and jump to the conclusion that it must be due to the user having been humiliated or shamed (which is what "tail between legs" refers to).
- 6y ago
- bmurphy1976 6y agoIt's been six months. Time to beat on Uncle Bob. You may think I'm joking but it sure seems like HN likes to beat on a few select personalities every couple months. I guess it's Uncle Bob's turn again.
- casselc 6y agoThis article is from 2017.
- bmurphy1976 6y agoThe HN submission and the comments are from today.
- tedivm 6y agoHe's been really active lately pushing his methods and insulting people who don't agree with him. He's also thrown a few tantrums over the last year or so that gotten him more negative attention.
- worik 6y agoThat was the way, once upon a time. I really like his stuff, I disagree with him a lot, good. I cannot be bothered with people I agree with all the time, boring
- tedivm 6y agoThere's a difference between engaging people in conversation over disagreements and flat out insulting people. Grown men throwing temper tantrums is never pleasant and should not be encouraged, and to be honest it was never "the way" for most people.
- worik 6y agoI agree with you, really. I do like his style, but not because it is a good style, or should be emulated. But because it is entertaining, and is getting rare (among people worth listening too, anyways) By "the way" I mean the alpha males of days gone by who were so certain of their correctness that... they acted like Uncle Bob Big Swinging Dicks
- sydd 6y agoNot really a rare thing among programmers, see Linus Torvalds :)
- mannykannot 6y agoFor one thing, on Stack Overflow there's a steady drumbeat of replies and comments that take Martin's writings and aphorisms as being the alpha and omega of software quality. Martin has a lot of good advice (along with some dubious attitudes) for someone relatively new to programming, but he most definitely does not have the last word on the issue.
- overgard 6y agoI think it's partially that he reminds me of a motivational speaker that end of the day just ends up saying things that are incredibly simplistic and not really useful. His message is basically "unit tests are good!", and it's like, cool, got anything else? Youre famous for this? I also think the "uncle" thing comes across painfully pretentious. I'm 35, if you're not actually my uncle I'm sure not calling you that.
- commandlinefan 6y ago> unit tests are good Well I sure wish more people would get the damned message - maybe if enough people listened he wouldn’t have to keep saying it.
- overgard 6y agoFunny paradox though: if they were that useful he probably wouldn't need to say it all the time :) (To be clear I'm not anti-unit test, they're fine, but they're a very small part of a much larger picture)
- eitland 6y ago> I also think the "uncle" thing comes across painfully pretentious. I'm 35, if you're not actually my uncle I'm sure not calling you that. It's a well known idiom: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob's_your_uncle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob's_your_uncle You might not think it's funny but it seems a lot of people so. Also: if anyone gets annoyed by it then for a lot of people that seems to make it even funnier. Just saying.
- barbarbar 6y agoAwesome - thank you. I had no idea. I suppose there are a lot of sayings like that in different languages. Which does not make much sense unless you know that language.
- staticassertion 6y agoI think it's just really dated and comes across weird.
- addicted 6y agoI just wanted to point out that this article is from 2017, so it’s definitely not part of some sort of recent hate fest. Edit: The title should probably include the “(2017)” tag.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]