6 ms·

Debunking the Duct Tape Programmer

29 points by nreece 17y ago

lamby 17y ago
I think he's actually agreeing with Joel, but he's just decided to ignore blatant conditionals in the original article. For example, claiming that "misapplying duct tape solutions in serious software development [ends up] creating unnecessary additional complexity" is in no way antithetical to Joel. And inserting stuff like "i've said it before, @jbogard : never take software advice from a bug tracking system salesman" has zero shock value anymore and hardly makes readers sympathetic to your argument.
- jbellis 17y ago
  > inserting stuff like "i've said it before, @jbogard : never take software advice from a bug tracking system salesman" has zero shock value anymore and hardly makes readers sympathetic to your argument Yeah, much better to take advice from people parroting methodology consultants. :) [Beck et al]
tptacek 17y ago
It'd be easy to take this post seriously if the author's resume talked about shipping product, as opposed to 2 paragraphs of methodology and certifications and passing mentions to two not-very-good open source ASP.NET projects ("CodeCampServer", featured in his bio, is hosted at Google Code).
- tamas 17y ago
  Did he just list his "Eagle Scout" badge under "News"?
- j_baker 17y ago
  This is an ad-hominem argument. Consider his arguments for their merits. Not because you don't feel he has a good enough resume.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    I know you read about Ad Hominem Arguments on several Important Internet Web Guides To Arguing, but in the real world the credibility and authority of an author does bear on their persuasive power. If Michael Arrington, Steve Ballmer, or Ashton Kutcher wrote an article about "duct tape programming", you'd have no trouble recognizing the dissonance. You only have trouble with it here because it hits close to home: you don't yourself want to be disqualified from the discussion. Which, nobody is going to do that, so relax. Besides, fully expecting at least 2 HN'ers to jump out from the bushes shouting "ad hominem!", I made some effort to keep my criticism relevant: it's not that he hasn't shipped real product, it's that he has a bio that makes it clear (to me) that he doesn't think shipping is as important as methodology.
    - dschobel 17y ago
      While you guys sort out whether the source of information should matter vs does it matter to us humans, it should be pointed out that the article itself endorses a quote which hits out against Spolsky for being a "bug tracking system salesman". Although, I'm writing enterprise code in MS technologies all day long so I'm clearly not to be trusted.
      - tptacek 17y ago
        But that quote was, at least, funny!
    - anamax 17y ago
      > If Michael Arrington, Steve Ballmer, or Ashton Kutcher wrote an article about "duct tape programming", you'd have no trouble recognizing the dissonance. I suspect that Ballmer is reasonably good at recognizing programmers who ship. He may not know why the things that he triggers on matter, but he's had lots of opportunities to discover such triggers.
davidmathers 17y ago
Oh god. When will it end?
- dschobel 17y ago
  The meta-discussions and navel gazing? Never. As an aside-- do you think Accountants sit on forums and blogs all day and say "there are two kinds of Accountants in the world..." or is this something unique to software people?
  - raganwald 17y ago
    do you think Accountants sit on forums and blogs all day and say "there are two kinds of Accountants in the world..." or is this something unique to software people? I think almost every profession gets together and starts a conversation "There are two kinds of ___ in the world," however nearly all of the others are introducing a self-deprecating joke whereas programmers seem oblivious to the ridiculousness of trying to classify such complex activities, teams, and people on such simple lines with so few discriminants.
    - BigZaphod 17y ago
      A programmer's primary job is the act of classification. Encoding a range of behaviors into functions/methods/objects in a way that we can keep track of and use over and over is what we do. So it's not too surprising that in our profession the notion of every idea having a "correct" box to fit into is so pervasive.
      - raganwald 17y ago
        I have spent my life trying unsuccessfully to classify things, so I sympathize. But I stop short of saying things can be classified so simply and on the basis of so few observables as to describe an entire methodology as having or lacking duct tape :-) There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who bifurcate everything into two kinds, and those who don't.
      - 17y ago
pvg 17y ago
Joel Spolsky, like all frequent writers, can be full of a great deal of hot air but the case study in his piece is 'a guy who was instrumental in writing and shipping the first widely usable web browser'. The 'debunking' is supported by someone's comment on twitter and a reference to a guy who writes books rather than software. Spolsky might have oversimplified, glossed intricacies over but you're hardly going to refute his point by oversimplifying further, digging through your tweets or summoning the persuasive power of a popular methodology to your aid. Because, you know, the other guy wrote Netscape.
- LSalin 17y ago
  Kent Beck and Robert C. Martin are both programmers. They don't just "write books rather than software" so their input is valuable. On the other hand, this blog post was written by by someone employed by a software consultancy company that prides itself from their Agile practices. So I can hardly blame him for defending his employer's practices.
  - rdrimmie 17y ago
    The article includes a quote "never take software advice from a bug tracking system salesman", and I think the same entertaining aphorism holds true for methodology consultants. Both have too much invested in you listening to their advice.
tsally 17y ago
This type of "programmer" makes me want to jump off of a bridge. The guy gives the acronym for standard operating procedure in the last paragraph of his post. Acronyms are for efficiency, but apparently this guy is using them to try to look smart. Also, the fixation with software development methodologies is very telling. How often do you hear master writers talk about the 5 paragraph essay? I know I'm being a bit harsh, but it's programmers like this that kill programming as a craft. I think I'll take the word of Peter Norvig on this one: "One of the best programmers I ever hired had only a High School degree; he's produced a lot of great software, has his own news group, and made enough in stock options to buy his own nightclub." http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html
gte910h 17y ago
While Joel writes for "hits", I honestly think he also believes in the DTP. I mean, they write in a custom language which compiles to a lot of other languages. For many shops, DTP is VERY important. For other shops, it's a very bad idea. For my company, DTP is good for some products, but not for others. Like all tools, it's important to use it when it is the right tool for the job. Joel unfortunately did not specify when that is.

29 points by nreece 17y ago

lamby 17y ago

I think he's actually agreeing with Joel, but he's just decided to ignore blatant conditionals in the original article. For example, claiming that "misapplying duct tape solutions in serious software development [ends up] creating unnecessary additional complexity" is in no way antithetical to Joel. And inserting stuff like "i've said it before, @jbogard : never take software advice from a bug tracking system salesman" has zero shock value anymore and hardly makes readers sympathetic to your argument.

jbellis 17y ago
> inserting stuff like "i've said it before, @jbogard : never take software advice from a bug tracking system salesman" has zero shock value anymore and hardly makes readers sympathetic to your argument Yeah, much better to take advice from people parroting methodology consultants. :) [Beck et al]

tptacek 17y ago

It'd be easy to take this post seriously if the author's resume talked about shipping product, as opposed to 2 paragraphs of methodology and certifications and passing mentions to two not-very-good open source ASP.NET projects ("CodeCampServer", featured in his bio, is hosted at Google Code).

tamas 17y ago
Did he just list his "Eagle Scout" badge under "News"?
j_baker 17y ago
This is an ad-hominem argument. Consider his arguments for their merits. Not because you don't feel he has a good enough resume.
- tptacek 17y ago
  I know you read about Ad Hominem Arguments on several Important Internet Web Guides To Arguing, but in the real world the credibility and authority of an author does bear on their persuasive power. If Michael Arrington, Steve Ballmer, or Ashton Kutcher wrote an article about "duct tape programming", you'd have no trouble recognizing the dissonance. You only have trouble with it here because it hits close to home: you don't yourself want to be disqualified from the discussion. Which, nobody is going to do that, so relax. Besides, fully expecting at least 2 HN'ers to jump out from the bushes shouting "ad hominem!", I made some effort to keep my criticism relevant: it's not that he hasn't shipped real product, it's that he has a bio that makes it clear (to me) that he doesn't think shipping is as important as methodology.
  - dschobel 17y ago
    While you guys sort out whether the source of information should matter vs does it matter to us humans, it should be pointed out that the article itself endorses a quote which hits out against Spolsky for being a "bug tracking system salesman". Although, I'm writing enterprise code in MS technologies all day long so I'm clearly not to be trusted.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      But that quote was, at least, funny!
  - anamax 17y ago
    > If Michael Arrington, Steve Ballmer, or Ashton Kutcher wrote an article about "duct tape programming", you'd have no trouble recognizing the dissonance. I suspect that Ballmer is reasonably good at recognizing programmers who ship. He may not know why the things that he triggers on matter, but he's had lots of opportunities to discover such triggers.

davidmathers 17y ago

Oh god. When will it end?

dschobel 17y ago
The meta-discussions and navel gazing? Never. As an aside-- do you think Accountants sit on forums and blogs all day and say "there are two kinds of Accountants in the world..." or is this something unique to software people?
- raganwald 17y ago
  do you think Accountants sit on forums and blogs all day and say "there are two kinds of Accountants in the world..." or is this something unique to software people? I think almost every profession gets together and starts a conversation "There are two kinds of ___ in the world," however nearly all of the others are introducing a self-deprecating joke whereas programmers seem oblivious to the ridiculousness of trying to classify such complex activities, teams, and people on such simple lines with so few discriminants.
  - BigZaphod 17y ago
    A programmer's primary job is the act of classification. Encoding a range of behaviors into functions/methods/objects in a way that we can keep track of and use over and over is what we do. So it's not too surprising that in our profession the notion of every idea having a "correct" box to fit into is so pervasive.
    - raganwald 17y ago
      I have spent my life trying unsuccessfully to classify things, so I sympathize. But I stop short of saying things can be classified so simply and on the basis of so few observables as to describe an entire methodology as having or lacking duct tape :-) There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who bifurcate everything into two kinds, and those who don't.
    - 17y ago

pvg 17y ago

Joel Spolsky, like all frequent writers, can be full of a great deal of hot air but the case study in his piece is 'a guy who was instrumental in writing and shipping the first widely usable web browser'. The 'debunking' is supported by someone's comment on twitter and a reference to a guy who writes books rather than software. Spolsky might have oversimplified, glossed intricacies over but you're hardly going to refute his point by oversimplifying further, digging through your tweets or summoning the persuasive power of a popular methodology to your aid. Because, you know, the other guy wrote Netscape.

LSalin 17y ago
Kent Beck and Robert C. Martin are both programmers. They don't just "write books rather than software" so their input is valuable. On the other hand, this blog post was written by by someone employed by a software consultancy company that prides itself from their Agile practices. So I can hardly blame him for defending his employer's practices.
- rdrimmie 17y ago
  The article includes a quote "never take software advice from a bug tracking system salesman", and I think the same entertaining aphorism holds true for methodology consultants. Both have too much invested in you listening to their advice.

tsally 17y ago

This type of "programmer" makes me want to jump off of a bridge. The guy gives the acronym for standard operating procedure in the last paragraph of his post. Acronyms are for efficiency, but apparently this guy is using them to try to look smart. Also, the fixation with software development methodologies is very telling. How often do you hear master writers talk about the 5 paragraph essay? I know I'm being a bit harsh, but it's programmers like this that kill programming as a craft. I think I'll take the word of Peter Norvig on this one: "One of the best programmers I ever hired had only a High School degree; he's produced a lot of great software, has his own news group, and made enough in stock options to buy his own nightclub." http://norvig.com/21-days.html http://norvig.com/21-days.html

gte910h 17y ago

While Joel writes for "hits", I honestly think he also believes in the DTP. I mean, they write in a custom language which compiles to a lot of other languages. For many shops, DTP is VERY important. For other shops, it's a very bad idea. For my company, DTP is good for some products, but not for others. Like all tools, it's important to use it when it is the right tool for the job. Joel unfortunately did not specify when that is.