From: Darin Johnson
Subject: Re: Lisp or Smalltalk: Suicide Mission, Part II
Date:
Message-ID: <cu1d5vynxh1.fsf@nokia.com>
·······@runbox.com writes:
> Philosophically, I'm not interested in becoming a 'language collector,'
> a computer scientist, or developing a 'hobby' - but I am VERY
> interested in getting real work done by writing my own applications.
Now the question is, will everyone else working on the project feel
the same way?
The reason I ask is that your statement here (and your requirements
elsewhere) lead me to think of the analogy: "I want to build my own
house, but I don't want to learn much carpentry or be an electrician."
In other words, professional programming is a _profession_. You
wouldn't want to write your own legal contracts would you? Believe
me, all of the programs I've seen that had a comment "I learned how to
program while building this" were pretty dismal. Learning all about
arithmetic and compound interest doesn't turn somebody into good
financial accountant; similarly learning the languages and tools for
programming doesn't make a good programmer.
I'm just going to gripe here for a moment, and see if I can shrug off
a few decades of baggage. I see this attitude all over that
programming is easy. Further, they may think that because they're
experts in what they do and they understand the problem that needs to
be solved that they also be able to write good programs to do so.
This just isn't true. What inevitably results is something that only
barely works and is impossible to maintain (think about the
stereotypical brilliant scientist who churns out abysmal Fortran).
Barely working programs that can't be maintained is ok in a hobby, but
disasterous for business. What does work though is if the experts
work alongside the professional programmers, rather than thinking that
they can save a few bucks and do it themselves.
Further this attitude is much more frustrating when the people in
charge of writing paychecks and hiring people have it. Things like
Visual Basic have encouraged this by having managers suddenly think
"wow, I just wrote a program, this isn't nearly as hard as my staff
told me it was."
--
Darin Johnson
"Look here. There's a crop circle in my ficus!" -- The Tick
Darin,
I don't think programming is easy, and I've admitted I will probably
never be a very good programmer. I'm not wanting to learn programming
to save some money...I'm definitely losing money in the short-term by
trying to learn to program. And I don't mean, in any way, to demean or
diminish the work or skills of professional programmers. I'm also not
trying to entirely supplant them on this or any other project. And,
again, I AM willing to learn...it is the "thinking like a programmer"
part of the equation that most fascinates me. But productivity is my
primary goal, and I think that bridging some of the communication gap
between programmers, systems analysts, and domain experts will lead to
increased productivity. I DO think that since I understand the problem
domain better than our programmers and system analysts that I can
contribute something to the development process.
I'm just wanting to be able to participate in a part of the process
which I've always been left out of, and to do that I need to learn to
program. As an amateur. Within the framework of a commercial
enterprise. It can't be a bad thing that I'm wanting to better
understand something I'm responsible for managing, can it? Would you
rather I be forcing .NET down everyone's throat because our Microsoft
rep says it's cool and I don't understand anything about it?
That being said, I'm not sure I can help you shrug off any baggage with
my history:
I do write my own law contracts (I went back to school for a law
degree, because I felt "professional" full-time practising attorneys
were a hindrance to the entrepreneurial process) I did build my own
house (twice), the first won an award for environmental design and the
second is a log home that I sold for a nice profit. I got certified as
a CPA, just so I would be more proficient in the operation of our
business. At this point, I've never performed surgery on myself, but
I'm not ruling that out for the future ;-)