9 ms·

If one doctor can transplant a heart in ten hours, can ten nurses transplant that heart in one hour? Can a hundred nursing assistants transplant that heart in s

If one doctor can transplant a heart in ten hours, can ten nurses transplant that heart in one hour? Can a hundred nursing assistants transplant that heart in six minutes? Can six hundred hospital receptionists transplant that heart in one minute? The real question is: Could the doctor do the transplant without any nurses? Could the nurses help the doctor without the receptionists?

bjornsing 13y ago
I agree very much. All honest work is honorable work and it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. But I also think the organizational distinction between receptionists, nurses and doctors is helpful in making a hospital function. I must admit I sometimes feel that missing in the software industry. Given time we tend to organize into functional units where people know who's good at what and how to contribute, but it's sort of like if everybody was hired into a hospital with the same job description and then had to informally hash out who should play doctor and who should be the receptionist...
robin2 13y ago
If I wanted to be pedantic I'd say that you'd really want a heart transplant done by a surgeon, not a doctor... That said, I think the real questions is: who is Robert Martin, self-described uber-hacker, that his opinions should be taken so seriously? What has he written?
- Profpatsch 13y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cecil_Martin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cecil_Martin He’s the head of the agile movement.
  - Nimi 13y ago
    AFAIK, not the head, but one of the founders - one of the signatories of the agile manifesto back in 2000: http://agilemanifesto.org/ http://agilemanifesto.org/
- kasey_junk 13y ago
  I first encountered him with this book: Designing object-oriented C++ applications using the Booch method and really liked: Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns and Practices. I didn't think Clean Code was worth it though.
- robin2 13y ago
  To expand on that a bit, I should mention that this question came up at a software craftsmanship meetup, after Martin had given a talk in Cambridge. (Incidentally, people who had seen him speak had been very disappointed.) The only answers to "Who is Uncle Bob?" seemed to be "He's very old" and "He wrote a book". Given his schtick is to be a sage figure of comparable stature to, say, Don Knuth or Brian Kernighan, I don't think that's good enough. (I missed Martin's talk because it clashed with one by Herman Hauser. Industry pioneer vs methodology salesman wasn't much of a contest for me.) I the interests of full disclosure, I should probably mention that I've had an encounter with another Martin (Micah) from 8th Light (see http://forums.pragprog.com/forums/62/topics/2753 http://forums.pragprog.com/forums/62/topics/2753) - nice kid but I wouldn't want him writing code that I needed to rely on.
  - Nimi 13y ago
    I find the described interaction problematic from an agile standpoint: "People and interactions over processes and tools" - and then, they agree to give a lecture on TDD? You're describing literally shoving a process down the throats of unwilling programmers. I'm not an agile expert, but it seems to me they should have refused such an arrangement, and plainly say: "Right now, you don't use an agile methodology. Us giving a lecture to your guys won't change that, it will simply be a waste of your money. You can rent from us an agile coach for minimum 6 months, and she will try to transition you to an agile methodology. This isn't a single decision you make and then 'bam, you're agile' - this affects hiring, you might even have to let go of programmers who won't play along. Don't pay us for a lecture that will simply anger your employees and achieve nothing." Regardless of the usual agile vs. waterfall debates, what they did sounds to me very far from the principles of being agile.
    - robin2 13y ago
      In this case, I don't think the company can be blamed. As I recall, it hadn't asked for TDD training, it had asked for C++ training. So if anyone should be blamed it would be ObjectMentor for (a) hearing this as "introduction to object orientation", and (b) sending someone with rusty C++ skills.
- strommen 13y ago
  http://lmgtfy.com/?q=robert+martin http://lmgtfy.com/?q=robert+martin
- unclebobmartin 13y ago
  Mr. Newton. Why is that the question? What does who I am have to do with what I wrote? Now, if you'd like to know who I am, I'll be glad to tell you. I've been writing code since 1970. I started on PDP/8s and PDP/11s. I have written BAL, COBOL, Fortran, PL/1, C, C++, Java, C#, Ruby, Python, Clojure, and a bunch of other language I can't remember. I spent many years writing embedded software in 8080 assembler, to control telecommunications micr-controllers. I spent a year and a half working at Rational with Grady Booch on the first two releases of Rose (for my sins). I have written five books on software development and have edited two more. I called the meeting that founded the Agile movement, and served as the first chairman of the Agile Alliance. I was the editor-in-chief of the C++ Report for three years. I am the creator of cleancoders.com, which offers software development video training. Nowadays I spend my time speaking, teaching, making videos, writing blogs, and writing Clojure and Java code. Is there anything else you'd like to know? (BTW, the term "uber-hacker" is not mine, and is incorrect. I shall endeavor to get that removed.)
  - unclebobmartin 13y ago
    My mistake. This was just another one of your misreported facts. The bio line on my blog says that I am an über _geek_; not an über _hacker_. And with _that_ characterization I must agree. Live long and prosper.
shittyanalogy 13y ago
Ironically your argument fails as it depends entirely on skill level. A highly skilled surgeon could perform emergency surgery without standard resources, and you could run an emergency hospital without receptionists. Let's not get distracted by shitty analogys.
- Cthulhu_ 13y ago
  To pull the analogy through to the extremes, even a highly skilled surgeon might not be able to do it because he doesn't know how to improvise, refuses to operate in a non-hospital environment, or insert a billion other reasons in here. tl;dr, T-shaped skillsets are good, specialists are good.
- tedks 13y ago
  Would a hospital staffed only by highly skilled surgeons constantly performing unassisted emergency surgery economically out-compete a hospital with nurses and receptionists?
  - shittyanalogy 13y ago
    I'm more commenting on the effectiveness of arguing through shitty analogy. There's no logical reason to imagine any of this let alone compare it to the programming industry. It breeds disagreement, distraction, and useless side-discussion that treads water and makes people angry at each other. And if you want to keep taking this to an extreme, using the shitty analogys provided: Would a hospital with 5 highly trained surgeons and no receptionists or nurses complete more surgery than a hospital with no surgeons and 100 nurses and 600 receptionists? Yes. But now we're saying absolutely nothing about the programming industry or what's we think is wrong with it.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > and you could run an emergency hospital without receptionists. Not for long, at least in the US, without replacing receptionists at least 1:1 with other people doing the job of receptionists (which, in the emergency room of a hospital, is entirely about getting identification, signed consent for treatment, and insurance/payment information from patients so that the hospital gets paid for the service it provides.)

bjornsing 13y ago

I agree very much. All honest work is honorable work and it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. But I also think the organizational distinction between receptionists, nurses and doctors is helpful in making a hospital function. I must admit I sometimes feel that missing in the software industry. Given time we tend to organize into functional units where people know who's good at what and how to contribute, but it's sort of like if everybody was hired into a hospital with the same job description and then had to informally hash out who should play doctor and who should be the receptionist...

robin2 13y ago

If I wanted to be pedantic I'd say that you'd really want a heart transplant done by a surgeon, not a doctor... That said, I think the real questions is: who is Robert Martin, self-described uber-hacker, that his opinions should be taken so seriously? What has he written?

Profpatsch 13y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cecil_Martin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cecil_Martin He’s the head of the agile movement.
- Nimi 13y ago
  AFAIK, not the head, but one of the founders - one of the signatories of the agile manifesto back in 2000: http://agilemanifesto.org/ http://agilemanifesto.org/
kasey_junk 13y ago
I first encountered him with this book: Designing object-oriented C++ applications using the Booch method and really liked: Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns and Practices. I didn't think Clean Code was worth it though.
robin2 13y ago
To expand on that a bit, I should mention that this question came up at a software craftsmanship meetup, after Martin had given a talk in Cambridge. (Incidentally, people who had seen him speak had been very disappointed.) The only answers to "Who is Uncle Bob?" seemed to be "He's very old" and "He wrote a book". Given his schtick is to be a sage figure of comparable stature to, say, Don Knuth or Brian Kernighan, I don't think that's good enough. (I missed Martin's talk because it clashed with one by Herman Hauser. Industry pioneer vs methodology salesman wasn't much of a contest for me.) I the interests of full disclosure, I should probably mention that I've had an encounter with another Martin (Micah) from 8th Light (see http://forums.pragprog.com/forums/62/topics/2753 http://forums.pragprog.com/forums/62/topics/2753) - nice kid but I wouldn't want him writing code that I needed to rely on.
- Nimi 13y ago
  I find the described interaction problematic from an agile standpoint: "People and interactions over processes and tools" - and then, they agree to give a lecture on TDD? You're describing literally shoving a process down the throats of unwilling programmers. I'm not an agile expert, but it seems to me they should have refused such an arrangement, and plainly say: "Right now, you don't use an agile methodology. Us giving a lecture to your guys won't change that, it will simply be a waste of your money. You can rent from us an agile coach for minimum 6 months, and she will try to transition you to an agile methodology. This isn't a single decision you make and then 'bam, you're agile' - this affects hiring, you might even have to let go of programmers who won't play along. Don't pay us for a lecture that will simply anger your employees and achieve nothing." Regardless of the usual agile vs. waterfall debates, what they did sounds to me very far from the principles of being agile.
  - robin2 13y ago
    In this case, I don't think the company can be blamed. As I recall, it hadn't asked for TDD training, it had asked for C++ training. So if anyone should be blamed it would be ObjectMentor for (a) hearing this as "introduction to object orientation", and (b) sending someone with rusty C++ skills.
strommen 13y ago
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=robert+martin http://lmgtfy.com/?q=robert+martin
unclebobmartin 13y ago
Mr. Newton. Why is that the question? What does who I am have to do with what I wrote? Now, if you'd like to know who I am, I'll be glad to tell you. I've been writing code since 1970. I started on PDP/8s and PDP/11s. I have written BAL, COBOL, Fortran, PL/1, C, C++, Java, C#, Ruby, Python, Clojure, and a bunch of other language I can't remember. I spent many years writing embedded software in 8080 assembler, to control telecommunications micr-controllers. I spent a year and a half working at Rational with Grady Booch on the first two releases of Rose (for my sins). I have written five books on software development and have edited two more. I called the meeting that founded the Agile movement, and served as the first chairman of the Agile Alliance. I was the editor-in-chief of the C++ Report for three years. I am the creator of cleancoders.com, which offers software development video training. Nowadays I spend my time speaking, teaching, making videos, writing blogs, and writing Clojure and Java code. Is there anything else you'd like to know? (BTW, the term "uber-hacker" is not mine, and is incorrect. I shall endeavor to get that removed.)
- unclebobmartin 13y ago
  My mistake. This was just another one of your misreported facts. The bio line on my blog says that I am an über _geek_; not an über _hacker_. And with _that_ characterization I must agree. Live long and prosper.

shittyanalogy 13y ago

Ironically your argument fails as it depends entirely on skill level. A highly skilled surgeon could perform emergency surgery without standard resources, and you could run an emergency hospital without receptionists. Let's not get distracted by shitty analogys.

Cthulhu_ 13y ago
To pull the analogy through to the extremes, even a highly skilled surgeon might not be able to do it because he doesn't know how to improvise, refuses to operate in a non-hospital environment, or insert a billion other reasons in here. tl;dr, T-shaped skillsets are good, specialists are good.
tedks 13y ago
Would a hospital staffed only by highly skilled surgeons constantly performing unassisted emergency surgery economically out-compete a hospital with nurses and receptionists?
- shittyanalogy 13y ago
  I'm more commenting on the effectiveness of arguing through shitty analogy. There's no logical reason to imagine any of this let alone compare it to the programming industry. It breeds disagreement, distraction, and useless side-discussion that treads water and makes people angry at each other. And if you want to keep taking this to an extreme, using the shitty analogys provided: Would a hospital with 5 highly trained surgeons and no receptionists or nurses complete more surgery than a hospital with no surgeons and 100 nurses and 600 receptionists? Yes. But now we're saying absolutely nothing about the programming industry or what's we think is wrong with it.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> and you could run an emergency hospital without receptionists. Not for long, at least in the US, without replacing receptionists at least 1:1 with other people doing the job of receptionists (which, in the emergency room of a hospital, is entirely about getting identification, signed consent for treatment, and insurance/payment information from patients so that the hospital gets paid for the service it provides.)