Ayende @ Rahien

Ayende Rahien commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:07:50 GMT

"The masses" ? I don't recall using this term. X in 21 days is a bad practice, how is this belittling? I don't think that I am a purist, and I certainly don't call to prevent people from learning. I think that you are missing the main point of the post. It is suppose to point out what your expectations should be. Not about how to teach people. Different topics all together.

Eldon Ferran de Pol commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:00:45 GMT

I completely understand that point but it is an issue for management and training. Of course terms like "the masses" and "X in 21 days" are belittling. Hiow else did you mean them? The problem is that there is a purist community (especially around TDD) that whether or not they intend to or not come over as very unapproachable and will critisice any code that is not fully DI'd, mocked, SRP'd etc, etc. Now that is fine amoungst their contemporaries but the reality is that for many dev's when they are starting out full of enthusiam, constanly being critised for the failings of code rather than praised for the improvement compared to last week isn't helpful. The vital point of Roy's blog in particular is seperate out the techniques and find an incremental approach that allows people to build layer by layer, knowledge on knowledge. That is the fundamental approach to learning that we all go through. Anything that comes out of those discussions that helps achieve it is extremely positive. I was working closely with a junior a while ago and I started with really simple stuff. Things like: Write Short Methods. For about a week I didn't introduce anything more than that. That is not going to set the world on fire but it does prepare for when we start refactoring, introducing the odd pattern, and start testing.

Ayende Rahien commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:22:26 GMT

Eldon, I had no intention of trying to belittle anyone. The intent of this post is to make it clear that programming is skilled work. Not being skilled in it is not a crime, but you should not be expected to be skilled with that overnight. And the industry as a whole should accept the fact that this is skilled work, not attempt to get along by throwing bodies at the problem

Eldon Ferran de Pol commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:14:33 GMT

Ayende, I find this kind of approach bit difficult to understand and also entirely unhelpful. The "disscusions that have been taking place" have nothing to do with getting good, experienced developers to apologise for their skills and everything to do with acknowledging that there are one hell of alot of developers that find barriers to entry to the top levels of coding. Simply blaming people for their ignorance and lack of self motivation doesn't actually help improve the industry. It is just a back slapping execise for "good" developers to say how great they are and how rubbish others not like them are. Roy's post and others like it are trying to address the fundamental question of why so many developers coast through their careers, often without even ever being exposed to good practices be they testing, good design or anything else. The low standards of development that are indeed rife in the industry should be questioned not mocked (no pun intended). On the one hand you seem to say it takes 10 years to be truly good (I agree) but on the hand seem to belittle anyone who hasn't got there yet. How does that help people with two years experience acheive? It doesn't. What it does it place an elitist veneer over quality coding that ultimately perpetuates the difficulties that people have in learning their trade. Sure the self motivated and the people lucky enough to work under good people early in there career will always rise to the top. I actually this is a critical debate that should really be moving into the academic world. I have long asked myself why so many people with computer science degrees are barely prepared for developing software when they arrive on the job market. There is definately a huge learning curve from there so why not help people along it because you clearly have the knowledge to do that.

Troy DeMonbreun commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:59:11 GMT

The problem is that the "Apes from the Zoo" are already already out and creating projects under the "Crack the Whip" managers. There is a *positive* way I tend to think about at it and a *negative* way I tend to think about it. I think "A steep learning curve is great for me because I am less intimidated than most by a steep learning curve. More $$$ for me!" AND I think, "Hmm, I'm worried because there is such a steep learning curve. That means a continuing foothold of Ape-Driven Development out there" An as such: * I might have cleanup behind crappy Ape-code at a future company. * I might have to work for a company who doesn't value quality because the Apes turned out something that sorta works. * I might have to worry about jobs being outsourced to another country because most managers would rather pay 1/3 the price to get something that sorta works. * I might have to worry that stable architecture practices are slowly becoming extinct in the Business Software world. Who knows, in a few generations, if the massive existing Technical Debt isn't paid off rapidly enough, maybe we'll have a Technical Recession? Just an off-the-top-of-my-head thought.

Manuel commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:48:32 GMT

I totally agree with what you said! These are days I'm spending so much time to let understand my customers, colleagues and more, the same thing you said, I appreciate that you think so about that, and I'm really happy of hear from you. I know you don't like more peoples who writes in your blog, but apart from your personality, I think you're a great one. But, starting from this consideration you made, I wish share one experience about, a person, "skilled" one told me some days ago, while I'm starting a new project: "here we must have a coding standard.. bla bla bla, we use, we must use as more as possible everything static, static methods, because static methods are faster than instance one...", after I said: "where hell am I"?? This is just a little fact, but I agree with the sentence you said, "I don't think that we need to apologize if we are working at a high level that makes it hard to beginners", you know, what can we expect here where all that you can hear about you day-by-day work is "do it fast, do it dirty but fast" and I add at the end "so it's possible to earn as much as possible with less"... I want to excuse to everyone who'll read this comment about my poor english.. Bye

J Healy commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:26:45 GMT

I feel I'm more than acknowledging the paradox inherent in applying resources to herding complexity. The unfortunate reality, though, is that dealing with certain levels of complexity simply demands high-level skill sets. This is easily seen in other disciplines, such as theoretical physics, where there is a definite competency threshold for doing even basic work in, say, String Theory. Having our top theorists teaching intro Cosmology courses is probably not the best use of scare resources - but still, everyone should be tasked with some form of 'bringing others along'. And what about common notions of 'hiding' complexity where one attempts to 'leverage' senior devs by having them produce 'infrastructures', 'frameworks', 'components', and 'services' for junior developers to work with and consume? A common sense idea, and basically that's what we're doing relative to the ALT.NET suite - but does that really play well out on your typical applicaiton project? And does it play out well with Agile / XP. Personally, I'd say that the use of sophisticated tool suites and development methodologies does set a relatively high bar over the sandbox. Think of it this way: driving a car takes skills, but is not that big a deal; flying planes take way more skills and is a big deal. You don't hand the keys to a plane to just anyone. Pilots, by definition, have invested in, or been invested with, a minimum skill set reflecting a minimum threshold of requisite capabilities. Many people could fly planes, but in the end, only pilots should fly planes, period. That said, however, we still need ground crews, mechanics, flight attendents, controllers, etc. in order to make commercial aviation work. And while software development is less formalized, I don't really think it is all that different, especially relative to the need to invest time and dollars - at every level - in those who show interest and promise in a particulare role.

Mike Brown commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:33:33 GMT

This is a problem that will consider to persist as long as businesses can get "functional" code that works good enough to solve their problems. It is very difficult to convince a businessperson that Potential value justifies extra up front costs. Even more difficult is convincing them that future savings in maintenance (which may or may not happen in their eyes) is worth the extra money it takes to hire a developer that can inject that maintainability into their application...or the extra time it takes to do that instead of "Just getting it done". A faulty bridge is a very tangible concept, if I drive over a poorly constructed bridge it could collapse and I'll fall 200 feet into the river below. Code that needs to be rewritten will not necessarily cause the company to collapse. When deciding where to place their budget dollars, a company will choose 9 times out of 10 to pocket the savings and incur the technical debt later over paying the costs now and realizing the savings later. This is the same thing that causes people to swipe their credit card for an item they can't afford and pay three to four times the cost in interest later.

Arjan Zuidhof commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:28:38 GMT

Interesting post, and comments... Although in this day and age *a lot* is expected from the average Joe Developer, the message here sounds a bit too elitist imho. Most of us here (readers of Oren's blog) are totally OK with design patterns, and introduce new tools when we find they add value by habit. Things like that. And I do know more than enough devs who are not interested in improving themselves at all. Still, we should strive to reach to 95% others, instead of thinking ourselves better devs than them. And realize that not every programming job requires the same skillset. If you're a maintenance dev hacking away in VBScript the whole day (I know them personally), you just don't need fancy schmancy "heavy stuff" to get your job done...

Jeremy Gray commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:47:11 GMT

It seems to me that a number of the commenters on this post have the mistaken impression that Oren (or anyone agreeing with Oren) are of the opinion that we should just leave less interested/experienced/talented/whatever developers by the wayside. Quite the opposite! However, the thing that we are (or at least I am) taking issue with is this asinine assumption that everything can be made easy and that we can somehow "build up the base", to paraphrase James, without a) time and b) effort on the part of those who are most in need of learning, supported by c) the commitment of employers to do their part in building up the base. Of course we should make things as easy for them as possible, no doubt about that. However, one cannot expect easy to always equate to dead simple and instantly (or even quickly) learned. I just take issue with the instant gratification assumption.

Iain Holder commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 10:52:56 GMT

@Miles "One out of two people have less than average intelligence. One out of two drivers have less than average driving skills. One out of two developers have below average skills." I hate to nitpick, but don't you mean median, not average. ;-) @Ayende I agree with Steve. You can be as in depth as you like, but if there are barriers to grokking it, there is a certain duty to tell people how to get over those barriers. Not do it for them, just highlight the path.

axl commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:03:19 GMT

Well said!

James commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 04:51:51 GMT

How do you raise the top of the pyramid? By building up the base. This is true of most professions where the barriers to entry are basically non-existent.

Miles commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:32:31 GMT

One out of two people have less than average intelligence. One out of two drivers have less than average driving skills. One out of two developers have below average skills. Let’s lock up the dumbies, get those bad drivers off the road and tape socks over the hands of those useless developers so they can’t code. It’s a slippery slope. Good developers are probably pretty smart, and probably get pretty frustrated with not so great developers. Perhaps that is the price you have to pay for being smart, it’s a good problem to have I would guess. We have a pretty young profession. Gravity has worked the same way for a long time now, so engineering has had a long time to sort it self out. Law, chemistry, etc, they’ve all had a long time to get the training right. I think it is worth our time getting these issues sorted without being too dismissive. Where I live, we are also short on developers, so I try to take a slightly more embracing attitude to developers who may be struggling with some concepts, and I ‘m happy for them to use tools that allows them to get the job down quicker. We need them: not to develop applications for radiology equipment, but I think they can have a crack at the room booking system for their local council.

The Other Steve commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:16:37 GMT

Heh. You guys all sound like Linux nuts from /. "A Printer should be hard to install! Damnit, that's why I get paid!" :-) If development becomes so hard that it is near impossible for people to enter into the development market, the work is going to go some place else. Think about it.

Steve commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:45:19 GMT

Learning to code is a process that spans much time. If we ignore those that are on a different curve then we aren't helping much. 'Coddling' is one thing - helping to teach and educate is another. We need a variety, we have masters, craftsman, apprentices ,all at different levels. If the masters just, ie. write books for other masters, then sure, that is fine. But typically you have masters that 'spread the wealth'. I think we need to make things 'accessible'. Accessibility means that it's there for me to see it, learn it, take it in. Those 3 words mean I'm interested and seeking to advance myself. So, I want to learn 'boo' for instance. With some instructions, some tutorials, etc... it is accessible for me to take it and learn it.

J Healy commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:10:09 GMT

In reality it's a difficult problem and one that highlights the current state of software development. I liken that 'State-of-the-Art' to us having emerged from the Dark Ages into a Renaissance where a relatively small number of great minds feverishly trade ideas amongst themselves, each putting out a great product. But that is still a long way from an 'Industrial Age' where knowledge then becomes something easily systemitized, packaged, and delivered in forms useful for ordinary folks to accomplish heretofore remarkable tasks.

Ayende Rahien commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:08:28 GMT

Paul, You wouldn't get them grasping everything in a week, no. You would be able to give them working knowledge so they can start producing value in a week.

Kyle Baley commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:07:54 GMT

I must have misunderstood. I read it as "how can we teach concepts to developers?" not "how can we dumb down the trade so that people can figure it out?"

Paul cowan commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:58:16 GMT

a week to get developers up to speed with all these concepts they are unfortunately unfamiliar with? I would love to be able to grasp nhibernate, tdd, mocking in a week. I'm worried my technology stack is a bit to "out there" coMpared the norm. Obviously I love it but then I would

Jason Olson commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:56:08 GMT

@Oren Well, if that's your point, I agree with you completely :). I would never want to cater to the lowest common denominator. I would much rather educate them (even though it may be difficult). I was simply saying that if our common development practices are only truly understood by the cream-of-the-crop, yet these are the same things that make us better as developers, perhaps it is a sign that there are underlying problems with the system we are building on. And rather than be proud of how smart we are and that other's should be smarter, we should ask ourselves whether what we are doing is healthy.

Ayende Rahien commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:45:41 GMT

Jason, Did you see anywhere in my post or in the comments I made anything about NOT making it easy? What I am saying is something completely different. Easy and advanced usually go together. And we shouldn't be limited by those who aren't willing or able to step up to what we need to do. What I am saying is that I shouldn't think twice about designing a system with DI because it is not understandable. Or that a system that uses double dispatch cannot be maintained, or that I use map or handle threads or implements IHttpHandlerFactory or any of the more powerful tools that I have. Great power and all of that, remember?

Jason Olson commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:42:48 GMT

@Casey Gotcha :). Although I don't consider writing database-access code in assembly "easier", but that could just be me :P. And I agree, I think older languages were perhaps easier. I know a lot of developers who got their start with some variant of BASIC. What is today's BASIC? How does an eight year old get hooked on programming today? I think some older languages were quite elegant too, where the language constructs themselves were built out of the language itself. Recursive language design, yummy.

Ayende Rahien commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:42:02 GMT

Paul, Then you spend a week getting them up to speed. If you don't get the people at the bottom of the pile, it isn't that hard.

Ayende Rahien commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:40:28 GMT

Nathan, The main difference is that once you state that you are not catering to mediocrity, you can start acting to bring the level of the people you are working up. And this post is aimed as much as the employers as at the developers. I love getting these type of people: "a vast ocean of programmers who on one hand do want to do their best and contribute high quality work but on the other won't spend all of their spare free time getting there" They are smart, they can learn, all you need to do is show them how. The best team mate I had was just like that, and she blew my mind by taking what I have shown and pushing it to places I never thought off.

Nathan commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:40:02 GMT

Aww man, you changed the title from Cuddling! Don't listen to Phil, it was better the first time, you don't want to cuddle with these third rate programmers either!

Paul cowan commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:37:46 GMT

and what about if you develop a product built on tdd,orm, IOC etc. and then you hit a period of boom where you need to bring people on board fast but fast cannot be done because the learning curve is steep for anyone coming on board. I am obviously speaking from experience

Jason Olson commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:37:12 GMT

@Oren Did I mention these programs were written in 1973-1974 and were full-blown GUI applications? Yes, GUI applications in 1973. Yes, there are always exceptions to the rule, but if what it wasn't the exception? A lot of the things we take for granted as developers today came from Smalltalk (or before), and one of the main founding principles of that language was to make programming easier to help usher in the personal computing revolution. Design Patterns? From the Smalltalk community. Unit Testing? From the Smalltalk community. Object-Oriented Programming? From Smalltalk. Etc. And if we weren't asking ourselves how to make it easier in the first place, we would have been content in Algol and just never made all the advancements that wouldn't be mainstream until 20-30 years after their time? I just fear that we're so content in the institution (and so proud of ourselves) that we're not willing to take the time to challenge the underlying assumptions that our systems are built on. Or are we in a Cargo Cult where we learned the techniques without understanding the underlying principles? If we're not willing to challenge ourselves and our assumptions, we're going to be perfectly content living on what we think is a flat world, with the universe revolving around us.

Casey commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:27:03 GMT

@Jason I said it was easier, I didn't say it was faster ... Touching on your previous comment: >>As a followup, could you imagine 11-12 year olds writing full-fledged paint programs, animation software, music notation software, etc. in C# or Java or C++? If not, why were they able to using Smalltalk back in the Xerox PARC days? <<<
At 13 I was writing commercial computer games in Z80 assembly, 6502 assembly, Commodore Basic, Spectrum Basic, and Forth ... if at that age I could teach myself half a dozen languages, I strongly suspect they were simpler. (and sadly I can still count in binary from the experience)

Ayende Rahien commented on Coddling is consider harmful

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:25:10 GMT

Jason, Think of the requirements that a paint program has now vs. 20 - 30 years ago. In addition to that, you get exceptions all the time. There is a 14 years old that I know that knows more about silverlight and javascript than I'll ever know, for example. There is a 13 years old that works on Python's core. That is, the actual python runtime. They are unique, and they have always been