6 ms·

I have read the book several times, Atwood offers more of a artistic interpretation of Weinberg's insights. It's no accident that no quote marks appear in his v

I have read the book several times, Atwood offers more of a artistic interpretation of Weinberg's insights. It's no accident that no quote marks appear in his version.

pvg 5y ago
Thanks, I suppose I'll read it myself to get a better idea of the degree of interpretation involved. There's a comment on the Atwood article which makes a point similar to yours above and Atwood's reply is very odd: https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/the-ten-commandments-of-egoless-programming/825/27 https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/the-ten-commandments-of... He seems to think these are, in part at least, quotes. And it's not just the "guy in the room" bit - when the commenter points out the book contains no 'commandments', Atwood doesn't say 'Oh, I just summarized it in list form'. He says he doesn't know where the text came from (?!). It's like the Atwood piece is itself derivative of something and it's not just the book and Atwood's own writing? Weird.
- yesenadam 5y ago
  That's weird isn't it! In a quick search, I couldn't find any occurrence online of the phrase "Don't rewrite code without consultation", one of those commandments, earlier than Atwood's article. This[0] was the earliest other one I could find, from a few months after Atwood's, which says "What Weinberg wrote in that book was a set of guidelines for developers working in a team environment to keep their egos separate from their code. In fact, I think these 10 guidelines.." - but in the book, although Weinberg talks frequently about "egoless programming", I can't see any (isolated) principles or guidelines, much less a list of commandments. I can't find an online version of McCarthy's Dynamics of Software Development to check what's in that. [0] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-ten-commandments-of-egoless-programming/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-ten-commandments-of...
  - ImprobableTruth 5y ago
    An earlier article from techrepublic written in 2001: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/egoless-programming-the-path-to-better-code/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/egoless-programming-the... This is the earliest google hit for "Ten Commandments for egoless programming". Curiously, the author, Lamont Adams, does not explicitly state that the commandments are from the book. Maybe "I present The (Almost) Ten Commandments for egoless programming" means that it's a summary by Adams?
    - yesenadam 5y ago
      Oh thanks! Yeah, seems Adams may well be the originator. p.s. I just wrote to him now asking about this! Maybe the truth will surface...
      - pvg 5y ago
        Another person to ask, I suppose, is Atwood.
      - pvg 5y ago
        I think a plausible explanation that fits all the bits and pieces is that Adams wrote this as a kind of riff of his own, inspired by the concept of 'Egoless Programming'. At some later point Atwood ran across some version of the 'commandments' list, thought they were quotes from the book and wrote his blog post. Thinking they were quotes, he probably didn't feel the need to cite where he found them. It's just a somewhat silly mistake, it happens - although it inadvertently spawned a mighty stream of Internet Wrongness. He should have probably updated and corrected the blog post when someone pointed out his mistake to him in 2016. He probably still should.
    - pvg 5y ago
      Oh nice, thanks for digging that up! For some reason I missed that one in trying to find earlier examples.
    - skmurphy 5y ago
      Thanks this is an earlier online source. Adams credits Weinberg for the term "egoless programming" but it's clear the 9 commandments are his. There is an updated version from builder.com in 2004 that adds a 10th commandment that matches the Atwood list see https://web.archive.org/web/20040603055200/http://builder.com.com/5100-6404-1045782.html https://web.archive.org/web/20040603055200/http://builder.co... (uncovered via http://blogs.ugidotnet.org/geniodelmale/archive/2006/01/03/32263.aspx http://blogs.ugidotnet.org/geniodelmale/archive/2006/01/03/3... )
- skmurphy 5y ago
  Sorry I was not clear. He is quoting generic noun phrases, these are not quotes from the "Psychology of computer programming."
  - pvg 5y ago
    No no, I understood what you meant! It's just that Atwood seems to think they are quotes, at least in part - the lack of clarity is entirely on his end. In fact, just about everyone on the internet who's ever mentioned these, with or without attribution to Atwood seems to think they are Weinberg quotes or at a minimum that these 'principles' are enumerated in the book. It looks, on the surface at least, a fairly major and uncorrected widespread misunderstanding.
    - skmurphy 5y ago
      Atwood's OODA Loop article at https://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of-iteration/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of-iteration/ is another example of a widely shared misunderstanding of an important insight. Here he copies an article by Roger Sessions that distorts several of Boyd's key insights. See also https://smoothspan.com/2010/09/15/jeff-atwood-is-not-quite-getting-ooda/ https://smoothspan.com/2010/09/15/jeff-atwood-is-not-quite-g... https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2015/07/26/planning-and-reflection/ https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2015/07/26/planning-and-reflec... Your hypothesis that he copied the points from somewhere else is certainly plausible, much of the phrasing in his "10 commandments" does not match Weinberg's diction although Weinberg did use the phrase "egoless programming."

I have read the book several times, Atwood offers more of a artistic interpretation of Weinberg's insights. It's no accident that no quote marks appear in his version.

pvg 5y ago

Thanks, I suppose I'll read it myself to get a better idea of the degree of interpretation involved. There's a comment on the Atwood article which makes a point similar to yours above and Atwood's reply is very odd: https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/the-ten-commandments-of-egoless-programming/825/27 https://discourse.codinghorror.com/t/the-ten-commandments-of... He seems to think these are, in part at least, quotes. And it's not just the "guy in the room" bit - when the commenter points out the book contains no 'commandments', Atwood doesn't say 'Oh, I just summarized it in list form'. He says he doesn't know where the text came from (?!). It's like the Atwood piece is itself derivative of something and it's not just the book and Atwood's own writing? Weird.

yesenadam 5y ago
That's weird isn't it! In a quick search, I couldn't find any occurrence online of the phrase "Don't rewrite code without consultation", one of those commandments, earlier than Atwood's article. This[0] was the earliest other one I could find, from a few months after Atwood's, which says "What Weinberg wrote in that book was a set of guidelines for developers working in a team environment to keep their egos separate from their code. In fact, I think these 10 guidelines.." - but in the book, although Weinberg talks frequently about "egoless programming", I can't see any (isolated) principles or guidelines, much less a list of commandments. I can't find an online version of McCarthy's Dynamics of Software Development to check what's in that. [0] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-ten-commandments-of-egoless-programming/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-ten-commandments-of...
- ImprobableTruth 5y ago
  An earlier article from techrepublic written in 2001: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/egoless-programming-the-path-to-better-code/ https://www.techrepublic.com/article/egoless-programming-the... This is the earliest google hit for "Ten Commandments for egoless programming". Curiously, the author, Lamont Adams, does not explicitly state that the commandments are from the book. Maybe "I present The (Almost) Ten Commandments for egoless programming" means that it's a summary by Adams?
  - yesenadam 5y ago
    Oh thanks! Yeah, seems Adams may well be the originator. p.s. I just wrote to him now asking about this! Maybe the truth will surface...
    - pvg 5y ago
      Another person to ask, I suppose, is Atwood.
    - pvg 5y ago
      I think a plausible explanation that fits all the bits and pieces is that Adams wrote this as a kind of riff of his own, inspired by the concept of 'Egoless Programming'. At some later point Atwood ran across some version of the 'commandments' list, thought they were quotes from the book and wrote his blog post. Thinking they were quotes, he probably didn't feel the need to cite where he found them. It's just a somewhat silly mistake, it happens - although it inadvertently spawned a mighty stream of Internet Wrongness. He should have probably updated and corrected the blog post when someone pointed out his mistake to him in 2016. He probably still should.
  - pvg 5y ago
    Oh nice, thanks for digging that up! For some reason I missed that one in trying to find earlier examples.
  - skmurphy 5y ago
    Thanks this is an earlier online source. Adams credits Weinberg for the term "egoless programming" but it's clear the 9 commandments are his. There is an updated version from builder.com in 2004 that adds a 10th commandment that matches the Atwood list see https://web.archive.org/web/20040603055200/http://builder.com.com/5100-6404-1045782.html https://web.archive.org/web/20040603055200/http://builder.co... (uncovered via http://blogs.ugidotnet.org/geniodelmale/archive/2006/01/03/32263.aspx http://blogs.ugidotnet.org/geniodelmale/archive/2006/01/03/3... )
skmurphy 5y ago
Sorry I was not clear. He is quoting generic noun phrases, these are not quotes from the "Psychology of computer programming."
- pvg 5y ago
  No no, I understood what you meant! It's just that Atwood seems to think they are quotes, at least in part - the lack of clarity is entirely on his end. In fact, just about everyone on the internet who's ever mentioned these, with or without attribution to Atwood seems to think they are Weinberg quotes or at a minimum that these 'principles' are enumerated in the book. It looks, on the surface at least, a fairly major and uncorrected widespread misunderstanding.
  - skmurphy 5y ago
    Atwood's OODA Loop article at https://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of-iteration/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/boyds-law-of-iteration/ is another example of a widely shared misunderstanding of an important insight. Here he copies an article by Roger Sessions that distorts several of Boyd's key insights. See also https://smoothspan.com/2010/09/15/jeff-atwood-is-not-quite-getting-ooda/ https://smoothspan.com/2010/09/15/jeff-atwood-is-not-quite-g... https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2015/07/26/planning-and-reflection/ https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2015/07/26/planning-and-reflec... Your hypothesis that he copied the points from somewhere else is certainly plausible, much of the phrasing in his "10 commandments" does not match Weinberg's diction although Weinberg did use the phrase "egoless programming."