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(English tip: advice isn't a countable noun, so you don't pluralise it) I agree entirely. My encounters with Uncle Bob were as a junior developer receiving adv

(English tip: advice isn't a countable noun, so you don't pluralise it) I agree entirely. My encounters with Uncle Bob were as a junior developer receiving advice [no "s"] from other junior developers. And yes, I too find it suspicious how many mavens of the "Agile era" never really managed to ship anything.

disgruntledphd2 2y ago
It's important to note that Kent Beck is not one of those people, as he shipped the first unit testing library, as well as a bunch of ones in other languages later. Like, I personally prefer the bare assert style of testing (like pytest), but the junit style is basically everywhere now.
- machine_ghost 2y ago
  Kent Beck is just as bad as Uncle Bob! He drank his own proverbial Kool-Aid and went all in on the crazy XP programming fad he started (... which contains brilliance like requiring pair programming for every line of code written). Look, both authors are very smart people who have great insights into development that we can all learn from ... but both also have the failing of being way too in love with their own ideas. It blinds them to the flaws in those ideas, and makes it so when you read their work you have to be skeptical and evaluate each individual idea on their own.
  - lmm 2y ago
    > which contains brilliance like requiring pair programming for every line of code written Because it works. Have you tried it?
    - Copenjin 2y ago
      Force it on people, you'll see how much it works. Getting another pair of eyes on the code that you wrote is useful, but it's not free (effort, tolerance) and it's not for everyone. Just do proper code reviews. Middle ground.
      - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
        > Getting another pair of eyes on the code that you wrote is useful, but it's not free (effort, tolerance) and it's not for everyone. Yeah, but to be fair I would argue that in the limit, real code reviews end up looking a lot like pair programming, and you can avoid a bunch of back and forth by both people being present during development. Obviously you still need code review (for regulatory reasons in a lot of cases), but the amount of times I've ended up on a Zoom talking through mine and others PRs makes me believe that pair programming would help here.
        michaelcampbell 2y ago
        > and you can avoid a bunch of back and forth by both people being present during development. I don't like pair programming for personal and cultural reasons (eg: I am uncomfortable with the _process_, but not the results), but the people in the pro-pair-programming camp will say the quoted bit above is one of its strengths. You back/forth and fix or change things early in the process. Doing a code review is "too late", since these early decisions that could have been made differently/better effect all the code that follows it into a further less-optimal space.
      - lmm 2y ago
        IME code reviews are a bullshit half-measure that ends up as the worst of all worlds. It's tragic that so many companies settle on them as a compromise position.
      - gabrieledarrigo 2y ago
        Pair programming should never be forced, but when applied... Jeez, it's powerful!
  - snapdaddy 2y ago
    to come up with and advocate for paired programming before the concept existed _is_ pretty brilliant. And you also don't understand how much those practices improved software engineering, presumably because when you started programming they were already entrenched ideas, and so all you see are their shortcomings. Those ideas do have flaws, and most of us are looking to improve how we right code. So if you aren't blind to those flaws, please, write a book or a blog or whatever on the best ways to write software so that we can all learn.
Copenjin 2y ago
Thanks for the correction, my opinion on the lack of credentials is that in the early days you just didn't need them to become popular, so little content that no one checked. I bit like it's happening nowadays with the anime profile pic twitter accounts acting like they invented AI, with zero code or achievements being shown.

disgruntledphd2 2y ago

It's important to note that Kent Beck is not one of those people, as he shipped the first unit testing library, as well as a bunch of ones in other languages later. Like, I personally prefer the bare assert style of testing (like pytest), but the junit style is basically everywhere now.

machine_ghost 2y ago
Kent Beck is just as bad as Uncle Bob! He drank his own proverbial Kool-Aid and went all in on the crazy XP programming fad he started (... which contains brilliance like requiring pair programming for every line of code written). Look, both authors are very smart people who have great insights into development that we can all learn from ... but both also have the failing of being way too in love with their own ideas. It blinds them to the flaws in those ideas, and makes it so when you read their work you have to be skeptical and evaluate each individual idea on their own.
- lmm 2y ago
  > which contains brilliance like requiring pair programming for every line of code written Because it works. Have you tried it?
  - Copenjin 2y ago
    Force it on people, you'll see how much it works. Getting another pair of eyes on the code that you wrote is useful, but it's not free (effort, tolerance) and it's not for everyone. Just do proper code reviews. Middle ground.
    - disgruntledphd2 2y ago
      > Getting another pair of eyes on the code that you wrote is useful, but it's not free (effort, tolerance) and it's not for everyone. Yeah, but to be fair I would argue that in the limit, real code reviews end up looking a lot like pair programming, and you can avoid a bunch of back and forth by both people being present during development. Obviously you still need code review (for regulatory reasons in a lot of cases), but the amount of times I've ended up on a Zoom talking through mine and others PRs makes me believe that pair programming would help here.
      - michaelcampbell 2y ago
        > and you can avoid a bunch of back and forth by both people being present during development. I don't like pair programming for personal and cultural reasons (eg: I am uncomfortable with the _process_, but not the results), but the people in the pro-pair-programming camp will say the quoted bit above is one of its strengths. You back/forth and fix or change things early in the process. Doing a code review is "too late", since these early decisions that could have been made differently/better effect all the code that follows it into a further less-optimal space.
    - lmm 2y ago
      IME code reviews are a bullshit half-measure that ends up as the worst of all worlds. It's tragic that so many companies settle on them as a compromise position.
    - gabrieledarrigo 2y ago
      Pair programming should never be forced, but when applied... Jeez, it's powerful!
- snapdaddy 2y ago
  to come up with and advocate for paired programming before the concept existed _is_ pretty brilliant. And you also don't understand how much those practices improved software engineering, presumably because when you started programming they were already entrenched ideas, and so all you see are their shortcomings. Those ideas do have flaws, and most of us are looking to improve how we right code. So if you aren't blind to those flaws, please, write a book or a blog or whatever on the best ways to write software so that we can all learn.

Copenjin 2y ago

Thanks for the correction, my opinion on the lack of credentials is that in the early days you just didn't need them to become popular, so little content that no one checked. I bit like it's happening nowadays with the anime profile pic twitter accounts acting like they invented AI, with zero code or achievements being shown.