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I'd be more inclined to believe Jeff when he says he doesn't need the rules, if I had some evidence he actually knew them. From what I can see, the problem of

I'd be more inclined to believe Jeff when he says he doesn't need the rules, if I had some evidence he actually knew them. From what I can see, the problem of "overly-rule-bound developers" is nowhere near the magnitude of the problem of "developer's who don't really have a clue."

redrobot5050 18y ago
Yeah. As codinghorror's userbase goes up, its relevance declines. I'm still waiting for a "Wiley Coyote and The Don't Repeat Yourself Rule" post or something equally nonsensical. Zed Shaw actually wrote a blog post about how these two guys were at a conference and he called him out on his shit. You can't talk tell everyone something like "real software is written by people who's income is directly proportional to their user base" when you've spent your whole life as a consultant to in house IT departments.
- codinghorror 18y ago
  you know Zed worked at Bear Stearns, right.. on in house IT stuff? I was one of the people at CUSEC urging him to get the hell out of there. Ultimately BS went out of business while Zed was there, so I guess it's moot.
  - redrobot5050 18y ago
    Yeah, he was quick to point out he was razzing Atwood. And Its been been written that the Zed Shaw personality that writes online and the Zed Shaw personality that you'd meet in meatspace are complete opposites. But still..."Ferengi Programmer" metaphors are unclear at best, terrible at its worst. There's a way to highlight the danger you're talking about ("religious adherence to coding standards / design patterns without comprehension") without being so gimmicky and still be entertaining.
codinghorror 18y ago
> From what I can see, the problem of "overly-rule-bound developers" is nowhere near the magnitude of the problem of "developer's who don't really have a clue." The deeper problem is that developers who don't have a clue are immune to rules. Throwing a book of rules at a sucky programmer just creates a sucky programmer with a bruise where the book bounced off their head. So, who, exactly are we writing these rules for, again?

redrobot5050 18y ago

Yeah. As codinghorror's userbase goes up, its relevance declines. I'm still waiting for a "Wiley Coyote and The Don't Repeat Yourself Rule" post or something equally nonsensical. Zed Shaw actually wrote a blog post about how these two guys were at a conference and he called him out on his shit. You can't talk tell everyone something like "real software is written by people who's income is directly proportional to their user base" when you've spent your whole life as a consultant to in house IT departments.

codinghorror 18y ago
you know Zed worked at Bear Stearns, right.. on in house IT stuff? I was one of the people at CUSEC urging him to get the hell out of there. Ultimately BS went out of business while Zed was there, so I guess it's moot.
- redrobot5050 18y ago
  Yeah, he was quick to point out he was razzing Atwood. And Its been been written that the Zed Shaw personality that writes online and the Zed Shaw personality that you'd meet in meatspace are complete opposites. But still..."Ferengi Programmer" metaphors are unclear at best, terrible at its worst. There's a way to highlight the danger you're talking about ("religious adherence to coding standards / design patterns without comprehension") without being so gimmicky and still be entertaining.

codinghorror 18y ago

> From what I can see, the problem of "overly-rule-bound developers" is nowhere near the magnitude of the problem of "developer's who don't really have a clue." The deeper problem is that developers who don't have a clue are immune to rules. Throwing a book of rules at a sucky programmer just creates a sucky programmer with a bruise where the book bounced off their head. So, who, exactly are we writing these rules for, again?