How Far Will Programmers Go? uses one of my O'Reilly weblog entries to mischaractise Fred Brooks's "No Silver Bullet" essay. Indeed, I get pummeled for using the phrase because I referred to another article that used it.
My original weblog entry simply stated that XP people don't like people criticizing XP, and so far the responses have pretty much borne that out.
I'm not really sure what this guy's story is. He just seems to like to be angry and smarter.
Your comment on his post gives me the impression that you didn't understand Brooks's essay either. In my experience, almost no one does.
I read the essay two nights ago, and all I have to say is that--whether due to Moore's Law or whatever, I don't care--I'm at least an order of magnitude more productive doing test-driven development with a language that supplies automatic memory management and the creation of domain-appropriate abstractions than I would be with the best language and platform available for the same price in 1986.
Now I realize that Brooks's ten years were up ten years ago, but wow, I can almost imagine a world in which people say "no silver bullet" only after thoughtful and careful consideration of his points, his counterpoints, and what he actually wrote. It's a beautiful dream.
Re:That's Funny!
jdavidb on 2006-10-11T22:46:11
I'm at least an order of magnitude more productive doing test-driven development with a language that supplies automatic memory management and the creation of domain-appropriate abstractions than I would be
Of course, Brooke's assertion was that no single advancement would yield an order of magnitude improvement. You listed a combination of advancements.
Re:That's Funny!
chromatic on 2006-10-11T23:16:45
Indeed. How curious then that a development process such as, oh, extreme programming, is obviously no silver bullet.
(Or it could be that a lot of people haven't actually read and thought about the essay.)
Re:That's Funny!
brian_d_foy on 2006-10-11T23:38:11
I think my original weblog entry was probably mostly out of a minor annoyance about how some people talk about XP, and I felt it on that particular day for whatever reason. That was back when I was making a lot of weblog entries, basically taking something I thought about for thirty seconds and just saying it. It's the sort of thing I would have mentioned at a party but would not have been interested in talking about for more than five minutes.
I used to treat blogs more like "hey, here's this thing I thought as I was reading the news this morning", probably expecting that people would either say "oh, that's interesting" or "that's crap" and move on. Well, as most of us know, it doesn't work like that. Despite the ease in which I can publish, that doesn't mean I should. I rarely post to the O'Reilly weblog now just for that reason. By publishing something, even in a blog, I'm attaching the "This is important" flag to it. I just don't have many things that deserve that falg, though (including this post and the original one).
Despite the revolution in publishing, we haven't caught up on the reading side. Any stupid thing I say in a blog gets elevated far beyond its importance. That might be partly due to my ability as an author, but that's not the whole story. People want to classify things (heh, tags, &c.), so when they read a post, they need to know which tag to apply to it. Do they use the "Asshole" or "Prophet" tag? Do they give it the thumbs down or thumbs up digg? Sometimes, I think there should be a neutral tag, such as "Yeah, whatever", or a neutral digg.
In reality, I should just ignore Google Blogsearch. That's what Randal tells me at least.:)
Re:That's Funny!
brian_d_foy on 2006-10-11T23:01:33
"No silver bullet" means, according to Fred Brooks: "There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself, promises an order in magnitude improvement in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity." Despite the particular context of his assertion, I think that's generally true for anything in life. One thing isn't going to make the world a better place.
You say that you're an order of magnitude more productive using test driven development and a language with automatic memory management. Well, that's two things. There is probably a lot more to your situation too, because, like any smart person, you have a lot of good habits and good processes. No single thing, isolated, would have worked.
I think, perhaps, that you might think I'm confused because I don't think the that particular blog entry is really talking about "No Silver Bullet". It uses it for the lede paragraph, but really just wants to rant about pessimists, which Brooks clearly states that he isn't (and re-affirms in "No Silver Bullet Refired"). I probably could have expressed my point better because I should havely asseredt that "conventional wisdom" is that stack of faddish management books at the book store promising that if you act like Jack Welch you'll be in charge of a GE sized company in 10 years.
However, if you still think I've missed the point, set me straight:)
Re:That's Funny!
chromatic on 2006-10-11T23:26:20
I thought Brooks qualified his theory with "In the next ten years", but I'm too lazy to walk two rooms over to check right now. Regardless, our understandings are equivalent.
For what it's worth, I do think a lot of people claiming "no silver bullet" are pessimists.
Re:That's Funny!
brian_d_foy on 2006-10-11T23:51:02
Well, in his particular situation of computer perfomance, he did say in the next decade. The sentence before my quote is "But, as week look to the horizon of a decade hence, we see no silver bullet". In that cases, he's talking about computer performance, but I see that as an application of his larger point.
He later says, however, that software will always be hard, despite any decade comment:
I beleive the hard part of building software to be the specification, design, and testing of [the conceptual connection between data and code], not the labor of representing it and testing the fidelity of the representation.
If this is true, building software will always be hard. There is inherently no silver bullet.
If you think that first paragraph is true, then Brooks asserts that there is no silver bullet. If you think it is true, as I do, then he asserts that there is no silver bullet.
Software has never gotten easier for me. Certainly I can more easily program the things I did ten years ago because I have better tools, languages, etc, but along with that the problems got more difficult.:) Re:That's Funny!
brian_d_foy on 2006-10-11T23:52:58
Why can't I edit comments?:(
I meant to say, if you think that first paragraph is false, then Brooks isn't really saying anything. If you think it's true, as I do, then he's saying there's no silver bullet.Oh yeah!?
sigzero on 2006-10-12T02:20:54
One thing isn't going to make the world a better place.
Peanut butter. The world is certainly better off for it! And I won't hear any different.
