As most of you know, I'm not one to spend a lot of time saying negative things about others online.  I find its more important to work on the positives than to focus on the negatives.  Unfortunately, we seem to be at a cross roads in our country with bailouts, free money and such.  At the same time, there seems to be this ideological warefare going on in the world of software development.  Now that I have been around for 41 (ugh) years, I have decided to change that some.  I plan on being a little more vocal about some of the idiotic arguments I see going on.

Political Affiliations

I've been tested and I'm pretty much right in the middle of political ideology. That's strange because I align myself with the Republicans.  Republicans say that they are for low taxes, business, and fiscal responsibility(haven't seen that under George Bush).  Democrats are suppossedly for taking care of the little man and making sure that all groups are taken care of.  I'm disgusted by both`.  Its obvious that neither represent the common good.  Based on a general stereotype of each, I'll associate them with some disturbing trends in software development.

The Jeff/Joel Republicans

Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky seem to be similar to the Republicans.  Theres always a need to build a business.  Technology supports the business in a consulting world.  Rarely in any business is technology the business.  Throw something out, see if it floats.  Now, now, now.  They're all about business.  App doesn't scale, don't waste time optimizing, just throw hardware at the problem.  Programmer's are expensive, hardware is cheap.  That's the Jeff/Joel ideology.  Go, go, go, now, now, now.  Biz, biz, biz.  In our world, we can't just keep boring money and spending it as we have done over the past 8 years.  In the consulting world, these ideas don't work either.  Customers don't want to just buy hardware.  There is a cost associated to just buying hardware.  Gartner Group would call this "Total Cost of Ownership" meaning that there is a cost to figure out which server to buy, getting the server installed, setup, and actually in place in your data center.  Jeff/Joel, you guys are the Republicans of today.  I've talked about this before.  I don't think Jeff/Joel are the problem.  Its actually their followers that are the problem. 

In my world, the things that Jeff/Joel make some amount of sense.   The idea of getting out and getting something done is important.  Unfortunately, the followers of Jeff/Joel don't seem to care about the future cost of all of this hardware over the next few years.  Sounds like what we've been living under the past few years.

TDD/ALT.NET Democrats

There is another group out in the world.  I've not been able to figure out if the group is TDD, ALT.NET, or something else.  As a result, I've been mixing them in my head.  However, they have a common thread.  That thread is the concept that everything has to be right before they go forward.  WTF?  Everything has to be right?!? You are f'ing kidding me.  Does anyone expect everything to be completely setup and completed in a software project/product.  This sounds like just like the Democrats wanting to make sure that every little group is taken care of (who's watching out for software developers in East Tennessee?).  Can we get something out and solve a business problem?  Can we get something out before a potential competitor does?  WTF do you mean we have to wait until all of these automated crap is 100% perfect.  How much time does this waste do we sit around waiting for the perfect solution?  Lots.  I'm often reminded of the line "Perfect is the enemy of the good." Try explaining this to someone on the business side. 

This has been on my mind since I was up at MS last summer. I sat in a talk about testing in VS.NET and listened to an hour of "Your tests are wrong and my tests are right."  All I could think of was "How about we solve the customer's problems instead of talking ideology."

Me.

I'm a centralist.  I think both sides have some merit.  Don't throw some piece of crap out there thats obviously going to break.  Don't wait forever to solve a business problem. Solve the problem and then iterate to make it better.  Realize also that building software isn't like building a home.  You aren't really ever done with, well you aren't done with it until the money runs out.  My point in this is to pull a little bit from each side that makes sense for your situation.  Nothing works perfectly in all situations.  Understand the right pieces to use and use them.

 PS. I reserve the right to change something if I find that I am not clear or wrong(like that would ever happen).  Feel free to email me your thoughts at wbm [at] wallym [dot] com