Mastering Programming (2016)(tidyfirst.substack.com)
tidyfirst.substack.com
Mastering Programming (2016)
https://tidyfirst.substack.com/p/mastering-programming
115 comments
I see it is written by Kent Beck - so look him up because he is not your average blogspam wannabe but actually someone you could list as software development master.
> There's a ton of (as the kids say) alpha in each of the bullet points.
Come on, I know I'm about to hit 40, but slang can't be evolving that fast! How am I supposed to be keeping up with all the kids?
Come on, I know I'm about to hit 40, but slang can't be evolving that fast! How am I supposed to be keeping up with all the kids?
Don't ask me! I don't have enough rizz to get included in those circles.
We became too complacent, and now we are paying the fanum tax (•́︿•̀)
maybe tiktok is a resolution.
Agreed, these are surprisingly on point.
The flow of 80/15/5 is what true seniority looks like in my opinion.
Do a lot of the heavy lifting on a goal, explore valuable (and sometimes promising but with a stretch) avenues around that goal and then be able to document and articulate in a way that another person can grow into it while you venture forth into the next challenge.
The flow of 80/15/5 is what true seniority looks like in my opinion.
Do a lot of the heavy lifting on a goal, explore valuable (and sometimes promising but with a stretch) avenues around that goal and then be able to document and articulate in a way that another person can grow into it while you venture forth into the next challenge.
Coincidentally these are the things I feel most enjoyable in my job, and I am good at doing them.
I will never accomplish perfection in coding. Much higher satisfaction in discovery and collaboration.
I will never accomplish perfection in coding. Much higher satisfaction in discovery and collaboration.
I am always amazed at how some people can put very complex concepts into very simple words. It's an art that is often undervalued.
You can too!
Recommended: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691147437/cl...
Recommended: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691147437/cl...
On the other hand, I'm not sure he succeeded on that front when communicating Agile or TDD. Arguably there are no works misconstrued more in the realm of computing than those. It may just be luck in this case – or perhaps a skill that has been honed over the years?
To switch contexts for a moment, let me suggest the French epigrammatist who influenced Nietzsche…
https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/knowledge-of-men/th...
https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/knowledge-of-men/th...
I generally don’t meta comment, but a bit surprising to me that the bulk of this discussion has been flagged dead. I think the discussion and criticisms there were valid.
If you have enough karma, you can “vouch” a dead comment back to life by clicking the timestamp.
At the time of these writing, only one comment was dead, and it was rude and content-free. The rest of its tree was arguing about Beck in general rather than the article, so everything’s working as intended IMO.
At the time of these writing, only one comment was dead, and it was rude and content-free. The rest of its tree was arguing about Beck in general rather than the article, so everything’s working as intended IMO.
Your regular reminder that Kent Beck was part of the Extreme Programming brain trust behind the massive failure that was the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Comprehensive_Compens...
Programming advice from him and his cohorts (Ron Jeffries and Martin Fowler) should be regarded with several large grains of salt.
Programming advice from him and his cohorts (Ron Jeffries and Martin Fowler) should be regarded with several large grains of salt.
I haven’t heard of C3 before, but I’m a big fan of reading about software project failures, and I’m not a fan of every aspect of XP, so I was certainly curious about this.
That said, the Wikipedia page neither supports nor refutes your assertion, and Fowler himself discusses C3’s failure here: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/C3.html
Fowler refers to notes that don’t seem to be in the Wikipedia entry any more: “In particular the entry in Wikipedia is misleading and incomplete, much of its comments seem to be based on a paper from a determined XP critic whose sources are unclear. Certainly its comments on performance are a misleading interpretation of material in my Refactoring book.”
Do you have any other links to this project? The fact that it went live and then reverted to the COBOL version is interesting.
That said, the Wikipedia page neither supports nor refutes your assertion, and Fowler himself discusses C3’s failure here: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/C3.html
Fowler refers to notes that don’t seem to be in the Wikipedia entry any more: “In particular the entry in Wikipedia is misleading and incomplete, much of its comments seem to be based on a paper from a determined XP critic whose sources are unclear. Certainly its comments on performance are a misleading interpretation of material in my Refactoring book.”
Do you have any other links to this project? The fact that it went live and then reverted to the COBOL version is interesting.
There is some discussion in C2 by the people involved about whether it was a failure or not: http://wiki.c2.com/?HighDisciplineMethodology
I believe the characterization of C3 as a "failure" is because it wasn't able to deliver the goal (goal was paying 87000 people – it only reached about 9000), and was later discontinued for multiple reasons (some unrelated, like people leaving, the merger with Daimler). The claim that "XP was banned" there seems overblown, it seems it's just that "people at DaimlerChrysler stopped taking terms like Smalltalk, OOP and XP" (per link above).
I believe the characterization of C3 as a "failure" is because it wasn't able to deliver the goal (goal was paying 87000 people – it only reached about 9000), and was later discontinued for multiple reasons (some unrelated, like people leaving, the merger with Daimler). The claim that "XP was banned" there seems overblown, it seems it's just that "people at DaimlerChrysler stopped taking terms like Smalltalk, OOP and XP" (per link above).
C3 was, by any measure, an abject failure. It got only the very basics working and then died when it ran into the vast number of unspecified exceptional cases (gee, where have we heard that before ...) that needed to be handled. And then got cancelled and completely reverted.
To then use such a failure as a marquee project demonstrating the supposed "superiority" of XP is unabashed chutzpah.
Now, large IT projects generally fail. So, XP is not wholly to blame.
However, the proponents of XP pushed it as superior silver bullet to navigate both the political and technical waters of software projects. The fact that C3 was such a spectacular failure simply demonstrates that XP really wasn't any different than any other methodology being pushed by people with an agenda.
To then use such a failure as a marquee project demonstrating the supposed "superiority" of XP is unabashed chutzpah.
Now, large IT projects generally fail. So, XP is not wholly to blame.
However, the proponents of XP pushed it as superior silver bullet to navigate both the political and technical waters of software projects. The fact that C3 was such a spectacular failure simply demonstrates that XP really wasn't any different than any other methodology being pushed by people with an agenda.
I was trying not to make any judgement call, but I agree.
To me there are worse things in the story, though: they tried to make User Stories and even customer-driven tests and ended up burning out the only customer that was able to do it.
It's not only underwhelming compared to the silver bullet they were selling in conferences and books, but it required some unicorn customer that they couldn't replace.
For years I saw people trying to make poor customers and PMs write Cucumber tests and man...
To me there are worse things in the story, though: they tried to make User Stories and even customer-driven tests and ended up burning out the only customer that was able to do it.
It's not only underwhelming compared to the silver bullet they were selling in conferences and books, but it required some unicorn customer that they couldn't replace.
For years I saw people trying to make poor customers and PMs write Cucumber tests and man...
To me there are worse things in the story, though: they tried to make User Stories and even customer-driven tests and ended up burning out the only customer that was able to do it.
This is still a legitimate concern today with the "product owner" role that a lot of popular Agile processes rely on. In effect the whole premise of having a PO embedded within the team as the authority on requirements that are expected to change at any time means the entire software development process is built around a single human point of failure.
This is still a legitimate concern today with the "product owner" role that a lot of popular Agile processes rely on. In effect the whole premise of having a PO embedded within the team as the authority on requirements that are expected to change at any time means the entire software development process is built around a single human point of failure.
Definitely.
I think I draw the line at asking them to produce user stories, to me that's already too much. Asking them to use Cucumber or BDD rituals is probably against the Geneva convention.
There really is no silver bullet to writing software. You gotta keep a short feedback with users, and not overwhelming them is important.
I think I draw the line at asking them to produce user stories, to me that's already too much. Asking them to use Cucumber or BDD rituals is probably against the Geneva convention.
There really is no silver bullet to writing software. You gotta keep a short feedback with users, and not overwhelming them is important.
A lot of the failure of XP was an assumption that all developers develop software the same way, and for all software teams XP’s tenants are optimal.
Practices like pair programming and TDD work on some instances, are absolutely terrible in others. The arrogance of the original XP folks was a hard core belief that they had found the silver bullet of software development, and then marketing it ruthlessly.
Practices like pair programming and TDD work on some instances, are absolutely terrible in others. The arrogance of the original XP folks was a hard core belief that they had found the silver bullet of software development, and then marketing it ruthlessly.
> It got only the very basics working and then died when it ran into the vast number of unspecified exceptional cases (gee, where have we heard that before ...) that needed to be handled. And then got cancelled and completely reverted.
> To then use such a failure as a marquee project demonstrating the supposed "superiority" of XP is unabashed chutzpah.
> Now, large IT projects generally fail. So, XP is not wholly to blame.
One could argue that XP achieved a significantly better outcome than the typical project of that size. They didn't cause any big outages, and reached the end result of being cancelled and reverted much more quickly and cheaply than usual.
> To then use such a failure as a marquee project demonstrating the supposed "superiority" of XP is unabashed chutzpah.
> Now, large IT projects generally fail. So, XP is not wholly to blame.
One could argue that XP achieved a significantly better outcome than the typical project of that size. They didn't cause any big outages, and reached the end result of being cancelled and reverted much more quickly and cheaply than usual.
The article by Fowler cited some ancestors up says something along the lines of "the cancellation of C3 proves that XP is no guarantee for success". Regardless of whether XP works for everyone or not, that's pretty far from claiming it's a silver bullet.
That's what he says now--it's highly revisionist.
All these guys were in the "If it failed, it wasn't true XP." while they were cashing paychecks for promulgating it--Fowler included.
All these guys were in the "If it failed, it wasn't true XP." while they were cashing paychecks for promulgating it--Fowler included.
I suspect I have some cached references, but I would have to go dig a presentation out of my backups.
Unfortunately, all parties involved in the C3 project would rather that it be forgotten. As such, it seems that it is going down the memory hole even faster than most Internet things. :(
Unfortunately, all parties involved in the C3 project would rather that it be forgotten. As such, it seems that it is going down the memory hole even faster than most Internet things. :(
Thank you so much for sharing this. I finally have some ammo. As a .Net dev, I constantly encounter too many people who think Fowler is a programming prophet.
> Near as I can tell the fundamental problem was that the GoldOwner and GoalDonor weren't the same. The customer feeding stories to the team didn't care about the same things as the managers evaluating the team's performance. This is bad, and we know it's bad, but it was masked early because we happened to have a customer who was precisely aligned with the IT managers. The new customers who came on wanted tweaks to the existing system more than they wanted to turn off the next mainframe payroll system. IT management wanted to turn off the next mainframe payroll system. Game over. Or not, we'll see... -- KentBeck
> So, I'm curious - does this represent a failure of XP? -- AnonymousCoward
> Sensitivity, certainly. But if the people who tell you what to do don't agree with the people who evaluate what you are doing, you're stuffed, XP or no XP. -- KentBeck
http://wiki.c2.com/?CthreeProjectTerminated
Between this and the Wikipedia article, it's not clear to me that the project failed due to XP practices.
> So, I'm curious - does this represent a failure of XP? -- AnonymousCoward
> Sensitivity, certainly. But if the people who tell you what to do don't agree with the people who evaluate what you are doing, you're stuffed, XP or no XP. -- KentBeck
http://wiki.c2.com/?CthreeProjectTerminated
Between this and the Wikipedia article, it's not clear to me that the project failed due to XP practices.
While C3 might not be strong evidence against XP neither should it be considered evidence _for_ XP.
I was about to post using the same words "grains of salt". Any programming advice from Agile and XP gurus should be basically ignored.
These object-oriented "birth projects" were all pretty much deemed failures. NeXTStep by Steve Jobs, C3...
Yet all these years later, the principles of OOP, and the companies built on them, outlived the politics that tried to squash them in the 90s.
Yet all these years later, the principles of OOP, and the companies built on them, outlived the politics that tried to squash them in the 90s.
OOP is a failure ... looked at through the lens of today.
Back then, OOP originally solved a very real problem--optimizing memory usage of bunches of objects that have mostly common behavior with just a few tweaks different from one another. It did pretty well at that at the expense of introducing some extraneous coupling and complexity.
And then memory got big and disk became SSD.
Now, programmers would rather burn extra memory, avoid pointer chasing (expensive on modern microprocessors), and ditch the extraneous coupling that introduces unnecessary complexity.
Back then, OOP originally solved a very real problem--optimizing memory usage of bunches of objects that have mostly common behavior with just a few tweaks different from one another. It did pretty well at that at the expense of introducing some extraneous coupling and complexity.
And then memory got big and disk became SSD.
Now, programmers would rather burn extra memory, avoid pointer chasing (expensive on modern microprocessors), and ditch the extraneous coupling that introduces unnecessary complexity.
Perhaps the biggest fail of XP and C3 was the YAGNI philosophy.
As it turns out, in many complex domains, you ARE going to need it, so you should factor that into your design sooner rather than later.
This is also why many consulting lead projects fail, because the developers do not understand the complexities of the domain.
Not everything is a CRUD website.
As it turns out, in many complex domains, you ARE going to need it, so you should factor that into your design sooner rather than later.
This is also why many consulting lead projects fail, because the developers do not understand the complexities of the domain.
Not everything is a CRUD website.
YAGNI is about not implementing features until they are needed. It’s not about ignoring the complexities of the domain. You can adhere to the principle while still designing a system that acknowledges the complexities but defers implementation until it is needed.
I have no horse in this race but I believe what the other poster was saying is that you might not need it but you should still think about it and decide if you should factor it into your designs.
YAGNI creates problems.
YAGNI creates problems.
Developers aren't great at sharing nomenclature, but by what seems to be the most common definition, YAGNI refers to not going off and implementing something that is more fun to implement, but isn't needed right away (if ever). Focus on what you actually need to get your project to a desirable state.
It doesn't say you should not consider future considerations in your design. In fact, it suggests that you should design your software to be as accommodating as possible, most notably by ensuring testing is core to your design to assist you when the time for change comes. The other poster you refer to and YAGNI seem to be in alignment.
It doesn't say you should not consider future considerations in your design. In fact, it suggests that you should design your software to be as accommodating as possible, most notably by ensuring testing is core to your design to assist you when the time for change comes. The other poster you refer to and YAGNI seem to be in alignment.
YAGNI is more about design than implementation. It's about worrying about future concerns rather than what you know you need right now.
The truth is in the middle, sometimes you need to design for the future and sometimes you don't. Often designing for the future just means making sure you haven't designed yourself into a corner rather than being able to fully deal with the future but that's a nuance most people miss.
The truth is in the middle, sometimes you need to design for the future and sometimes you don't. Often designing for the future just means making sure you haven't designed yourself into a corner rather than being able to fully deal with the future but that's a nuance most people miss.
> YAGNI is more about design than implementation
Not as it seems to be usually defined, but I agree that programmers are bad for not sharing a common nomenclature. We can't even agree what something as simple as enums are. So, no doubt that there are camps who hold that perspective. enterprise_cog clearly comes from the "don't implement", not "don't design" definition, though.
Not as it seems to be usually defined, but I agree that programmers are bad for not sharing a common nomenclature. We can't even agree what something as simple as enums are. So, no doubt that there are camps who hold that perspective. enterprise_cog clearly comes from the "don't implement", not "don't design" definition, though.
"you aint gonna need it" can be clarified as "you aint gonna need all those extension points".
it can also mean you don't need functionality you're not using, including implementations for those extension points.
it can also mean you don't need functionality you're not using, including implementations for those extension points.
While I accept your definition, because, hey, programmer's can't agree on definitions at the best of times, that is not the definition that was used earlier. And is not the definition presented by the XP gang.
John Carmack of Doom fame seems to share your definition, suggesting that attempts to plan architecture in advance will only come to bite you, but I'm not sure he is an XP subscriber and he certainly wasn't involved in C3.
John Carmack of Doom fame seems to share your definition, suggesting that attempts to plan architecture in advance will only come to bite you, but I'm not sure he is an XP subscriber and he certainly wasn't involved in C3.
oh yeah, you're right, what the XP guys meant was "spend all your time building the architecture with all kinds of extension points just don't implement them... YAGNI!".
It's a mis-interpretation and it's not a reasonable one either.
It's a mis-interpretation and it's not a reasonable one either.
Pretty much. Central to the YAGNI message is ensuring that your design brings test coverage to help you build the things you need when you need it. Kent Beck is credited with having invented TDD, so of course that's at the heart of their theorem.
You need those extension points to keep your tests sane. They come naturally as part of the testing process.
You need those extension points to keep your tests sane. They come naturally as part of the testing process.
[deleted]
YAGNI is a conscious and iterative task prioritization process. From a Pareto perspective, it just means to focus on the 20% of functionality that provides 80% of the value first.
That's not to say the other 80% of requests should be ignored. But instead well documented and groomed in a backlog.
That's not to say the other 80% of requests should be ignored. But instead well documented and groomed in a backlog.
In practice, YAGNI works out exactly how C3 ended up. Your architecture and design ends up myopic and short sighted, and gets overwhelmed by deferring complexity that could have been dealt with adequately early on, it is much harder to retrofit back onto an existing code base.
Fowler means it literally. He had examples published on Artima.com years ago where he gives examples of hard coding things left and right and adding better support “only when you absolutely need it”.
To be clear I am not arguing for big design up front. I am arguing to keep an eyeball on your roadmap, and that is not only OK to anticipate the future but maybe do some small amount of work to make the future work easier.
The fallacy of “You Ain’t Gonna Need It” is that you so very often do, and the developers down the road are cursing out the devs who ignored the future.
Fowler means it literally. He had examples published on Artima.com years ago where he gives examples of hard coding things left and right and adding better support “only when you absolutely need it”.
To be clear I am not arguing for big design up front. I am arguing to keep an eyeball on your roadmap, and that is not only OK to anticipate the future but maybe do some small amount of work to make the future work easier.
The fallacy of “You Ain’t Gonna Need It” is that you so very often do, and the developers down the road are cursing out the devs who ignored the future.
"You Are Gonna Need It" is the YANGI I live.
I also feel the same about "premature optimization," but that might just be due to my personality.
I also feel the same about "premature optimization," but that might just be due to my personality.
If you subscribe to "You Are Gonna Need It", how do you ever get around to shipping software if you are always implementing the things that are fun, but unnecessary, and not focusing on the things that are needed to progress?
The "premature optimization" thing warned against making code hard to read/debug for the sake of performance in areas where performance is unlikely to ever be a concern. If you don't ship software, it is understandable this is isn't much of a problem.
Although I'm not sure how applicable that really is today anyway. The tools have changed dramatically. Often you want to make your code as readable/debuggable as possible as that also gives the best chance for the compiler to find the optimizations. These days, if you try to get fancy, you'll probably make the performance worse.
The "premature optimization" thing warned against making code hard to read/debug for the sake of performance in areas where performance is unlikely to ever be a concern. If you don't ship software, it is understandable this is isn't much of a problem.
Although I'm not sure how applicable that really is today anyway. The tools have changed dramatically. Often you want to make your code as readable/debuggable as possible as that also gives the best chance for the compiler to find the optimizations. These days, if you try to get fancy, you'll probably make the performance worse.
If you subscribe to "You Are Gonna Need It", how do you ever get around to shipping software if you are always implementing the things that are fun, but unnecessary, and not focusing on the things that are needed to progress?
The point is that you aren't always implementing things that are unnecessary. You probably have a roadmap where you're pretty sure what you're going to be doing for the next few days and weeks and less sure as you look further ahead. Obviously you don't want to spend months building some over-engineered, over-architected monstrosity. But there are plenty of people out there who take YAGNI very literally and argue that you shouldn't implement anything you don't need right now. That's absurdly inefficient if you can guess with 80-90% accuracy what you're also going to need a month from now and you can save a lot of effort by implementing everything mostly right the first time and not repeatedly reworking code you've only just written over that time only to end up at the same place anyway.
The point is that you aren't always implementing things that are unnecessary. You probably have a roadmap where you're pretty sure what you're going to be doing for the next few days and weeks and less sure as you look further ahead. Obviously you don't want to spend months building some over-engineered, over-architected monstrosity. But there are plenty of people out there who take YAGNI very literally and argue that you shouldn't implement anything you don't need right now. That's absurdly inefficient if you can guess with 80-90% accuracy what you're also going to need a month from now and you can save a lot of effort by implementing everything mostly right the first time and not repeatedly reworking code you've only just written over that time only to end up at the same place anyway.
I think the article can be summarised as; “Don’t flail around aimlessly”
> Isolation. If you only need to change a part of an element, extract that part so the whole subelement changes.
I don't get what the author means by this. Anyone wants to elaborate?
I don't get what the author means by this. Anyone wants to elaborate?
Say some gigantic piece of function has 600 lines of code that does logic this, logic that and logic this and that. Suppose one day your PM goes into your office and request that a certain special case be added to this feature.
You do not further increase the complexity of this function by having one or two variables in the front, several if-elses in the middle not to mention a couple gotos.
You take these special cases and the most relevant logic away into yet another function, document it and hence ensure the changes to that 'special logic' do not mess up with the rest of that feature.
You do not further increase the complexity of this function by having one or two variables in the front, several if-elses in the middle not to mention a couple gotos.
You take these special cases and the most relevant logic away into yet another function, document it and hence ensure the changes to that 'special logic' do not mess up with the rest of that feature.
If you like this you might like the book:
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/tidy-first/978109815123...
Previous discussion:
How I came to write “Tidy First?” tl;dr it took 18 years
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35246995
Tidy First?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38942400
https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/tidy-first/978109815123...
Previous discussion:
How I came to write “Tidy First?” tl;dr it took 18 years
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35246995
Tidy First?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38942400
I think an expert knows this.
and
For A new, non-expert, these suggestions might be too generic, too high level, broad. They wont grasp the point.
and
For A new, non-expert, these suggestions might be too generic, too high level, broad. They wont grasp the point.
Many of these suggestions made me remember my own experiences, some where I intuitively followed them and some where I did not. Reading this write-up made me realize their value and will hopefully remind me that I need to do these things more often.
As someone who is not an expert but tries to gain wisdom from past experiences, it helps me to see where my intuitions might have been right or wrong, even if I may not get the point right away.
As someone who is not an expert but tries to gain wisdom from past experiences, it helps me to see where my intuitions might have been right or wrong, even if I may not get the point right away.
Even if the suggestions are a bit too generic, they might click for someone some time after they've read it. It also helps validate some things that less experienced programmers might be doing but aren't sure are the best things. I for example found that some things I seem to be gravitating towards are mentioned, which will hopefully allow me to focus on them and grasp them better in the future.
I agree.
I might be, being miss-interpreted as dismissing this article.
They are definitely good points, and doesn't hurt to read them.
I think all the points are valid.
Maybe I was just contemplating how experts sometimes 'summarize' their knowledge, condense it, but in the process of trying to be succinct, becomes itself un-fathomable, generic.
I might be, being miss-interpreted as dismissing this article.
They are definitely good points, and doesn't hurt to read them.
I think all the points are valid.
Maybe I was just contemplating how experts sometimes 'summarize' their knowledge, condense it, but in the process of trying to be succinct, becomes itself un-fathomable, generic.
I suspect that the unfathomable nature of condensed knowledge arises from the fact that there is simply no shortcut to expertise. You must earn it through experience.
Someone with a similar level of experience to the author may well have the right foundations to draw on such that a condensed expression of an idea resonates well. Others may only get a "seed pearl" to help shape how they view their past and future experiences. And some might be able to recognise that there is wisdom there, but not be able to relate it to their own understanding at all.
Without any relevant experience, it's just words devoid of much meaning.
Someone with a similar level of experience to the author may well have the right foundations to draw on such that a condensed expression of an idea resonates well. Others may only get a "seed pearl" to help shape how they view their past and future experiences. And some might be able to recognise that there is wisdom there, but not be able to relate it to their own understanding at all.
Without any relevant experience, it's just words devoid of much meaning.
Thanks for making me feel dumb. :D
zabzonk(10)
Looks right. Read it and transcend journeyman programmers!
I can't say that I practice all or most of these habits, but the points about "calling your shots" and "concrete hypotheses" resonate. For example, when I add a debugging printf/log, I always ask myself, "will this output invalidate one or more hypotheses?" If not, then I need to rethink the problem.