Uncle Bob nails it again
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> Every year. though we apply massive effort, we make less progress than the year before; because every year we get closer and closer to the asymptote. No, every year we get new newbie asses. ;) Marc
Imperative to Functional Programming Succinctly Contributors Wanted for Higher Order Programming Project! Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny
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I agree. He sounds old and resistant to change. I'm sure if he was coding before OOP came around he'd be saying the same thing about OOP being a waste of time.
Jeremy Falcon
LOL, I suspect Uncle Bob is one of the people who came up with the Agile Manifesto. I know he's a huge fan of Agile and all things TDD. Resistant to change...? :rolleyes: Back in the 60s and 70s when programming became a thing, there was some scientific rigour behind it. It came about at Universities, business labs and places of learning. Nowadays anyone with a computer connection can become a "programmer". Hell, I did! :laugh: But the mantra nowadays seems to be "give me a way to do it faster and without so much hassle" (i.e. so I don't have to fix so many bugs). No one makes an effort to learn to program properly anymore, so they just keep sticking language and framework bandaids over the problems. So yes, churn.
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LOL, I suspect Uncle Bob is one of the people who came up with the Agile Manifesto. I know he's a huge fan of Agile and all things TDD. Resistant to change...? :rolleyes: Back in the 60s and 70s when programming became a thing, there was some scientific rigour behind it. It came about at Universities, business labs and places of learning. Nowadays anyone with a computer connection can become a "programmer". Hell, I did! :laugh: But the mantra nowadays seems to be "give me a way to do it faster and without so much hassle" (i.e. so I don't have to fix so many bugs). No one makes an effort to learn to program properly anymore, so they just keep sticking language and framework bandaids over the problems. So yes, churn.
He absolutely did.
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Finally someone who says it. We are not making progress, we are going in circles mighty fast.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.Not only are we running in circles, but even talking about running in circles is an old story[^].
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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raddevus wrote:
ere's a question-guess -- Do you work for a government somewhere? :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Done that, but that had little to do with programming. More with Mach 3.5
raddevus wrote:
Umm...do you think we are better off than the people who read machine language zeros and ones? Maybe a bit. Are we any better off than the Assembly language programmers? Maybe another shade. I understand your meaning though.
Guess what I'm doing right at this moment? I'm writing good old assembly code. Visual Studio as code editor, antique subroutines I wrote many years ago, a simple makefile, an almost 40 year old debugger and an emulator for the elderly target computer. Much too comfortable. I should go over to the old computer and use the hex keyboard. :-)
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a fucking golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?" "You mean like from space?" "No, from Canada." If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.Mach 3.5? A slow Phantom? ;)
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While the old and seasoned side of me agrees with this, I don't think it's a waste of time to challenge the norm. It's how we evolve. I'm a slow-to-move dinosaur myself, for those very reasons he mentioned. I didn't even care about .NET for years until I had to for work... because what's the point? I could do what I needed to do already. Libraries like React are fantastic IMO. Thinking it's the next holy grail however is immature and silly. The pros know this, which is what the article suggests as well. But, I for one am glad someone decided to give it a go and make a lib that improves upon something. I totally understand the "shiny new button syndrome" by newbs. But, every now and again, change is warranted. It's the information age man. Too much clutter and not enough content. But sometimes there's content. Ya know.
Jeremy Falcon
Exactly this. Chimps who don't have any analytical skills rush toward the next new thing because "It's new! It will solve all our problems!" instead of actually analyzing whether it is better. At the same time, dinosaurs stick in the mud and can hack something together using an antiquated framework. I'm not sure where the line is, but we need to keep pushing forward, while at the same time, only introducing new tools when they make sense for our project, not just because.
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Uncle Bob has become that cranky old guy who yells at kids to get off his lawn. Sorry, but we haven't actually got it all figured out yet. This is a silly rant from someone who doesn't want to adapt. He sounds like a "communist" dictator. There will be no dissention! You will not try to create a better way to solve a problem! You will use the things we have always used! Our grandparents built houses with nothing but a hammer and some handmade nails, and so shall you! Actually newer things are sometimes better. Maybe not all of them, maybe not always, but if you never try, then you'll still be building houses with nothing but a hammer and some handmade nails forever. And it's actually fun in the meantime, even if we spend a little time exploring new ideas. Every shiny new thing he derides is probably used successfully by millions of people. Frankly the only reason I am still a software developer is because of new things. Who wants to bang out the same code in exactly the same way year after year?
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CDP1802 wrote:
Guess what I'm doing right at this moment? I'm writing good old assembly code
That really is very cool. I'm writing AVR-C (on the GNU C Toolchain) for embedded development myself. When it's compiled down to the hex file I often go and look at the straight hex, because I am weird. :D Im finishing my article for codeproject which uses an ATMega328, bluetooth and a relay module and it has straight C code in it for the embedded. Lots of fun. Edit The article is posted to CP: Never Buy A Garage Door Remote Again: Open Your Door With Your Android Phone (via Bluetooth)[^]
My book, Launch Your Android App, is available at Amazon.com.
Looking forward to reading your article! Uncle Bob is definitely correct on people always look at the new 'shiny' language or framework. I remember my early days of looking for the '1' perfect language. Pascal, Forth, C, etc, etc, etc. Of course I never found it (you'll shudder but I do have a fondness for Forth!). From my perspective now as an embedded programmer/engineer (since the 70's), C/C++ is the only real choice I have as a programming language. It's the only language that has been available on every processor I've programmed for in the last 20+ years. Every RTOS I've used has a C or C++ interface. All my personal libraries that I've built up over the years are in C and C++. I'll be programming in C/C++ for the rest of my career (only 2.5 years till retirement!!!).
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I agree. He sounds old and resistant to change. I'm sure if he was coding before OOP came around he'd be saying the same thing about OOP being a waste of time.
Jeremy Falcon
No offense intended (but probably unavoidable), but you sound young and too cocky and naive to consider the experienced perspective of older folks who've been there and seen a bit more than you.
If you think 'goto' is evil, try writing an Assembly program without JMP.
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I usually agree with Uncle Bob, and I understand his over-arching point here, but this article (especially the closing bit) sounds suspiciously like "let's just stop all the new stuff". And that doesn't sit well with me. The day you give up trying to innovate is the day you become a fossil. Regardless if you're successful or not, the attempt is often far more important than the result.
Yes. This. I'm normally in agreement with him, but he's making some strange assumptions here that are not really obvious. For example: 1. Who says that these experiments are slowing people down? Some people are slowed down, the majority isn't. 2. If those people would be concentrating on a handful of languages, would they agree on anything? Or would you just have more different frameworks for less languages? 3. He's not taking taste into account. People work faster in frameworks/languages they like. So programmers who don't like Bob's chosen 5 are out of luck? Also, some people (like me) like learning new languages. Why take our fun away?
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LOL, I suspect Uncle Bob is one of the people who came up with the Agile Manifesto. I know he's a huge fan of Agile and all things TDD. Resistant to change...? :rolleyes: Back in the 60s and 70s when programming became a thing, there was some scientific rigour behind it. It came about at Universities, business labs and places of learning. Nowadays anyone with a computer connection can become a "programmer". Hell, I did! :laugh: But the mantra nowadays seems to be "give me a way to do it faster and without so much hassle" (i.e. so I don't have to fix so many bugs). No one makes an effort to learn to program properly anymore, so they just keep sticking language and framework bandaids over the problems. So yes, churn.
The day is coming when we will write programs by attaching 2D blocks to each other, then viola, we have a program! (I think MS has already done this with scratch, MFC windows, and C# Forms/WPF. Some tools can translate a flow chart to code.)
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Jeremy Falcon wrote:
growing old
Hey! I just had my 17th birthday, a few days ago*! * Who the Hell wants to be an adult?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
How many years have you been celebrating that 17th birthday (again)?
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Not only are we running in circles, but even talking about running in circles is an old story[^].
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
Maybe I am old fashioned, but I still like the King James version best....
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Mark_Wallace wrote:
OO? Sure, it works, but I was coding objects in COBOL more than 30 years ago, without having to change anything about the language.
This is the voice of experience speaking. I remember thinking something similar for my C projects. Took me a while to jump unto the OOP bandwagon being so awesome it cures cancer. Just like it's gonna take people a while these days to jump onto the next thing. Change is slow.
Mark_Wallace wrote:
An improved IDE is worth a hundred times more than any new language, as is any library/framework that reduces the level of detail that you have to delve into.
Agreed. Although, having gotten used to some newer languages (in web dev at least) it's rough to go back.
Jeremy Falcon
I remember the same thing in the early '90s when they were talking about CASE tools, and that they would make everything simple and programmers superfluous. I have no idea how many times I have been asked to develop a product using a "new technology", only to recognize that a lot of what I needed to learn was based on some early tech I was acquainted with. It brings to mind the saying, those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it....
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The day is coming when we will write programs by attaching 2D blocks to each other, then viola, we have a program! (I think MS has already done this with scratch, MFC windows, and C# Forms/WPF. Some tools can translate a flow chart to code.)
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I'm not a great fan of Uncle Bob's preaching but he is right here, but perhaps not quite for the reasons he puts. Roughly the software development field turns over new technology every 5-10 years. What I learned as an Informix developer, or C/C++ developer or VB developer is more or less useless as far as building an applications goes. Sure, I've got some general principles to apply across all languages and technology stacks but there is also a hell of a lot of specific stuff that just doesn't transfer. Especially the raw, tested and proven code that I would recycle into other applications. This means just as I'm getting really good at something (5+ years), say Linux/EsqlC/Informix I've got to dump that experience and re-tool. Hand on heart, can anyone really say we're 'experts' in anything? Even if I dusted down a language I used 10 years ago, there's a lot of stuff I've forgotten about it. This sort of pace of change doesn't happen in other professions (say legal, accounting or medical) and in this context it shouldn't really come as a surprise that we struggle as a profession. I'm fairly sure, but can't prove, that one reason why the success of a project is such a crap shoot is because of the relative inexperience of the developers using a specific technology stack.