A bit of Philosophy from me today. I saw a couple posts recently that have had me thinking about something I've felt for awhile. And not to go all elitist on you, but I want you dear reader to think about this.
The title of this post references a Coding Horror post called "The Two Types of Programmers." Like myself Jeff is a bit of a philosopher (sometimes maybe too much for his own good).
Anyway, Jeff got a lot of readers riled up by this post. So today I also saw this post by ALT.NETer Phill Haacked entitled "Composition over Inheritance and other Pithy Catch Phrases." I try to stay out of the ALT.NET discussions (even though I use some of their tools). I stay out for a couple of reasons - 1) I don't agree with everything, 2) my co-bloggers and I have agreed to stay positive (which can be a challenge for me). Some of the finer points from Phil's post:
"What I am against is saying that it applies in all cases...."
"Blindly applying a 'best practice' is just as irresponsible as never applying a 'bets practice.'"
Hmm... sounds familiar...
Anyway, I want to talk about sloppy thinking or worse no thinking. Sometimes it seems that the community in general (and again I am not an ALT.NETer so I will stay away from that particular discussion) wants clear cut answers. I remember reading Scott Hanselman once saying "Thou shalt always use MVC for building Web Apps." Even if it's a trivial web app? Hmm... it's that word "always" that is the problem for me (and others obviously).
So why bring up Jeff Atwood's post? Well, because the heart of the matter is a human problem. Don't believe me?
Well how should I vote in the next presidential election? Should I vote Republican? Depends on who you ask. I think the problem is that we all at times don't really want to think. We want to get within our like-minded cliques and let the group tell us what to do.
Last night I was amongst a few of my "brothers" at a bible study (bear with me), and a political discussion broke out before the study. I was the guy hiding behind the coach throwing out a couple one-liners, but for the most part avoiding the discussion (I'm not exactly a conservative... nor am I exactly a liberal). What I heard was much of the typical drivel thrown about by the populists that we all listen to. I heard the buzz words (like "Liberal Media" and "Oil Man"). As I am exposed to this stuff, it seems to me that there are 2 kinds of people.
Those that think hard on an issue and those that don't. Those that don't and are very zealous are often called "fanboys." They exist strictly to push the views of the group... and not their own ideals or ideas.
The same thing exists in the programming world. .NET or Java? You'll get some well thought out answers on that question... but there are always the guys who are really just fanboys stirring up trouble.
The answer for me on .NET or Java is depends on the server as well as the app. No one likes "depends"; people seem to think it's bad mentoring. I feel that it's better to teach the rookie why something is a bad choice today and tell them when it will be a good choice... you teach them to think and produce solutions that make sense instead coding horrors that are built on a ton of "Best Practices."
Print | posted on Wednesday, December 12, 2007 9:51 AM