Jeremy's Programming Manifesto...

Published 31 October 06 10:35 AM | MikeD

Jeremy posts about his Programming Manifesto. It's a great read, and while I am still digesting it, I will just summarize it here. Go read his stuff please.

 Unit Testing and Testability over Defensive Coding, Tracing, Debugging, and Paranoid Scoping

Sharp Tools over Coding with the Kid Gloves On

Writing Maintainable Code over Architecting for Reuse and the Future

Explicit Code over Design Time Wizards

Software Engineering over Computer Science

Jeremy prefaces his manifesto saying "while I do believe there is some value in the stuff on the right, I think the stuff on the left [in large font bold] is more valuable and important."

The only thing I am grappling with in his manifesto is how will the next paradigm shift in programming fit in with this? Model-driven, software-factory stuff, for example. We've got to move somehow from building a high-rise office building (ie. enterprise app) by mixing the concrete with shovels in a wheelbarrow, instead of assembling pre-stressed concrete sections of floors and walls. The Design Time Wizards that Jeremy is (rightly) eschewing need to be much more standard, much more flexible, much more powerful.

There is a quantum shift in the programming paradigm coming, just when and how and who will drive it is the mystery.

 

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Comments

# Carl said on October 31, 2006 04:25 PM:

Yeah, you would need to synergize your approch to the paradigm shifts and leverage the existing core  competencies...

Thanks for sharing this manifesto, and please stop the PHB talk :|

# Joe Chung said on October 31, 2006 07:27 PM:

The problem with manifestos, methodologies, and this whole business of software architectures is that they are all totally ignored by the people who actually write the bad code all of us have to suffer with.

No manifesto, no methodology, and no architecture is going to turn a bad coder into a good coder, and there are a lot more bad coders out there than good ones.

# Steve Porter said on October 31, 2006 08:11 PM:

The section titled Writing Maintainable Code over Architecting for Reuse and the Future that had me jumping up and down screaming halle-f@%king-lujah.

# Community Blogs said on November 1, 2006 01:47 PM:

Rob Howard asks "Which is more difficult?"Steve, if you liked the "Writing Maintainable