4 ms·

Ward Cunningham has "never coded up any great software"? Ever used a Wiki? Hypercard? Kent Beck "never coded up any great software"? Ever used JUnit? Oh, b

by gchpaco 17y ago

Ward Cunningham has "never coded up any great software"? Ever used a Wiki? Hypercard? Kent Beck "never coded up any great software"? Ever used JUnit? Oh, but those are too small to be great, I'm sure. XP is not great for a lot of things and a lot of people; it demands a lot from folks, and especially a lot from management, which causes problems in implementation. The on-site customer, which is important, is a constant stumbling block. They may have fiddled with it since, but the XP I remember watching take shape on the original C2 Wiki was very simple, sometimes to the point of being obvious, and not especially flexible within its bounds. But I give it a lot of credit for a lot of things--the current culture of unit testing grew out of that, and simple, incomplete but useful testing libraries have done more to help than anything else I can remember in the last ten years.

plinkplonk 17y ago
I thought HyperCard was created by Bill Atkinson, but hey maybe Ward did write it and he DOES deserve credit for WIki and I was wrong to lump him with the rest. The seventeen signatories of the Agile Manifesto The were: Kent Beck, Mike Beedle, Arie van Bennekum, Alistair Cockburn, Ward Cunningham, Martin Fowler, James Grenning, Jim Highsmith, Andrew Hunt, Ron Jeffries, Jon Kern, Brian Marick, Robert C. Martin, Steve Mellor, Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland and Dave Thomas. Who among these (aside from Ward) has contributed original/brilliant software? Most of them are good communicators and developers of average skill. I have used JUnit I don't think it is particularly mind blowing software, just as I don't think Java is a particularly great language. Your opinions differ obviously. So yes, as heretical as it may sound to your ears, I consider Kent Beck only a so so programmer. You should read his book "Test Driven Development By example" to see a sample of his terrible code and "design" sense. Compare it with something like "Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming" or "C interfaces and Implementation" to see how great software design is done. I'll burn at the stake for such blasphemous beliefs to be sure, but that's ok. All that said it is interesting to note that Ward is the least strident is marketing his methods as a methodology or claiming that XP/agile is the ultimate way to develop software. The loudest are people like Bob Martin and Ron Jeffries, who are the least impressive as programmers. Ken Scwaber is the man behind the Scrum scam. So my hypothesis still holds. The very best programmers don't set themselves up as methodology consultants, even within the ranks of the methodology consultants. ;-) "But I give it a lot of credit for a lot of things--the current culture of unit testing grew out of that, " If you think unit testing didn't exist before XP, you are wrong. Good programmers have ALWAYS unit tested their code, well before Java or JUnit. And a lot of people think XP is utter hogwash. The strength of your belief in its goodness doesn't counter that.
- hugs 17y ago
  Ward wrote the first prototypes of his Wiki using HyperCard, so you could say that Ward wrote and created HyperCard stacks, but he didn't create HyperCard itself.
- hboon 17y ago
  No idea about his programming skills, but I have read Kent Beck's Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns and it is pretty useful and it was often recommended to both Smalltalkers and non-Smalltalkers. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Smalltalk-Best-Practice-Patterns-Kent/dp/013476904X http://www.amazon.com/Smalltalk-Best-Practice-Patterns-Kent/... (it's not a gang-of-four-type patterns book, more like a style guide.)

by gchpaco 17y ago

plinkplonk 17y ago

I thought HyperCard was created by Bill Atkinson, but hey maybe Ward did write it and he DOES deserve credit for WIki and I was wrong to lump him with the rest. The seventeen signatories of the Agile Manifesto The were: Kent Beck, Mike Beedle, Arie van Bennekum, Alistair Cockburn, Ward Cunningham, Martin Fowler, James Grenning, Jim Highsmith, Andrew Hunt, Ron Jeffries, Jon Kern, Brian Marick, Robert C. Martin, Steve Mellor, Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland and Dave Thomas. Who among these (aside from Ward) has contributed original/brilliant software? Most of them are good communicators and developers of average skill. I have used JUnit I don't think it is particularly mind blowing software, just as I don't think Java is a particularly great language. Your opinions differ obviously. So yes, as heretical as it may sound to your ears, I consider Kent Beck only a so so programmer. You should read his book "Test Driven Development By example" to see a sample of his terrible code and "design" sense. Compare it with something like "Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming" or "C interfaces and Implementation" to see how great software design is done. I'll burn at the stake for such blasphemous beliefs to be sure, but that's ok. All that said it is interesting to note that Ward is the least strident is marketing his methods as a methodology or claiming that XP/agile is the ultimate way to develop software. The loudest are people like Bob Martin and Ron Jeffries, who are the least impressive as programmers. Ken Scwaber is the man behind the Scrum scam. So my hypothesis still holds. The very best programmers don't set themselves up as methodology consultants, even within the ranks of the methodology consultants. ;-) "But I give it a lot of credit for a lot of things--the current culture of unit testing grew out of that, " If you think unit testing didn't exist before XP, you are wrong. Good programmers have ALWAYS unit tested their code, well before Java or JUnit. And a lot of people think XP is utter hogwash. The strength of your belief in its goodness doesn't counter that.

hugs 17y ago
Ward wrote the first prototypes of his Wiki using HyperCard, so you could say that Ward wrote and created HyperCard stacks, but he didn't create HyperCard itself.
hboon 17y ago
No idea about his programming skills, but I have read Kent Beck's Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns and it is pretty useful and it was often recommended to both Smalltalkers and non-Smalltalkers. [1] http://www.amazon.com/Smalltalk-Best-Practice-Patterns-Kent/dp/013476904X http://www.amazon.com/Smalltalk-Best-Practice-Patterns-Kent/... (it's not a gang-of-four-type patterns book, more like a style guide.)