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#[1]All posts for Baldur Bjarnason
• [1]Archive
• [2]Newsletter
• [3]Book
• [4]AI Book
• [5]Contact
* [2]Archive
* [3]Newsletter
* [4]Book
* [5]AI Book
* [6]Contact
[6]Baldur Bjarnason
[7]Baldur Bjarnason
Web dev at the end of the world, from Hveragerði, Iceland
Web dev at the end of the world, from Hveragerði, Iceland
21 November 2022
21 November 2022
Programming is a Pop Culture
(What follows is an extract from [8]Out of the Software Crisis, lightly
edited to work as a blog post.)
__________________________________________________________________
(What follows is an extract from [7]Out of the Software Crisis, lightly edited
to work as a blog post.)
So I think what happened is computing has turned into pop culture
and the universities are not helping in general, at least not in the
US.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
So, Cicero---anybody know a good Cicero quote having to do with the
present and past? Let's check your classical education here. So, you
know who Cicero was. He was one of those old Roman guys.
So, Cicero once wrote: 'He who knows only his own generation remains
forever a child.'
So I think what happened is computing has turned into pop culture and the
universities are not helping in general, at least not in the US.
[9]Programming and Scaling (Alan Kay, 2011)
So, Cicero---anybody know a good Cicero quote having to do with the present
and past? Let's check your classical education here. So, you know who
Cicero was. He was one of those old Roman guys.
The programming pop culture defines change—any change—as progress. Most
developers, myself included, have a fascination with novelty. If it’s
new, then it must be an improvement. You even hear this stated outright
as an argument by developers: it’s newer and therefore better. Trends
in software development are rarely based on objective observation or
sensible practice. This endless chasing of trends leads to projects
being needlessly rewritten, code being abandoned, and new projects
being started when fixing the bugs in an old project would have done
the same. The stocks of the software development system are flushed out
at a moment’s notice simply because the developers found something
shinier.
So, Cicero once wrote: 'He who knows only his own generation remains
forever a child.'
Experienced developers are aware of this tendency in themselves and
work to mitigate it, but younger developers are often under the
mistaken impression that this is how software development works. Unless
they can pare back this tendency or are matched with teammates who hold
them back, this tendency can lead to immense destruction of value for
an organisation.
[8]Programming and Scaling (Alan Kay, 2011)
Pop cultures favour the visual aesthetic of the day. We all know what
sort of aesthetic designers commonly favour. Small, low-contrast text,
lots of whitespace, no pure whites or pure blacks (just greys). The
details vary with fashion, but each generation of designers has a
preferred visual aesthetic. That aesthetic tests poorly; the text is
illegible; the layout doesn’t have enough contrast. The information
density is so sparse it’s effectively non-existent.
The programming pop culture defines change—any change—as progress. Most
developers, myself included, have a fascination with novelty. If it’s new, then
it must be an improvement. You even hear this stated outright as an argument by
developers: it’s newer and therefore better. Trends in software development are
rarely based on objective observation or sensible practice. This endless
chasing of trends leads to projects being needlessly rewritten, code being
abandoned, and new projects being started when fixing the bugs in an old
project would have done the same. The stocks of the software development system
are flushed out at a moment’s notice simply because the developers found
something shinier.
Looks pretty, though.
Experienced developers are aware of this tendency in themselves and work to
mitigate it, but younger developers are often under the mistaken impression
that this is how software development works. Unless they can pare back this
tendency or are matched with teammates who hold them back, this tendency can
lead to immense destruction of value for an organisation.
Coders have a similar tendency, their preferred aesthetic is just a bit
different, but as with designers, it tests horribly when put in front
of genuine users. The exact details of the preferred aesthetic tend to
vary from generation to generation. One group prefers light-on-dark
text (despite not suffering from conditions that benefit from dark
mode) and unusable hyper-complex layouts where everything is
configurable. Another group goes for ultra-minimalism where nothing is
shown by default. You constantly scrub around and hunt for a button, a
widget—anything that even vaguely resembles an affordance. This is
usually not an issue if you have designers on the team. If you’re
letting the programmers design the user interface or are a programmer
designing a user interface, you need to be aware of it.
Pop cultures favour the visual aesthetic of the day. We all know what sort of
aesthetic designers commonly favour. Small, low-contrast text, lots of
whitespace, no pure whites or pure blacks (just greys). The details vary with
fashion, but each generation of designers has a preferred visual aesthetic.
That aesthetic tests poorly; the text is illegible; the layout doesn’t have
enough contrast. The information density is so sparse it’s effectively
non-existent.
But this adherence to a specific aesthetic isn’t limited to designs.
It’s also an issue when it comes to the code itself.
Looks pretty, though.
The programming pop culture favours specific code aesthetics based on
the trends of the day. I’m not talking about code style or formatting.
The code in a project should adhere to a single style, simple as that.
The issue is that the programming pop culture demands that code exhibit
the latest popular aesthetics of rigour, formality, and cleverness.
Whether the code actually is rigorous, formal, or clever matters less.
A few years ago, as the popularity of the Ruby programming language
peaked, a certain dynamism and trickery were en vogue. It didn’t matter
if you were writing in Ruby, JavaScript, or Objective-C. Your code had
to have a level of “magic” to it. Metaprogramming, syntax-hacking
languages to create ad hoc Domain-Specific Languages, tricks with
extreme late binding, and more were frequent topics on developer
weblogs and forums. Even a phrase like “objective-c runtime
metaprogramming” will date you to a specific generation of native app
developers almost down to a single year.
Coders have a similar tendency, their preferred aesthetic is just a bit
different, but as with designers, it tests horribly when put in front of
genuine users. The exact details of the preferred aesthetic tend to vary from
generation to generation. One group prefers light-on-dark text (despite not
suffering from conditions that benefit from dark mode) and unusable
hyper-complex layouts where everything is configurable. Another group goes for
ultra-minimalism where nothing is shown by default. You constantly scrub around
and hunt for a button, a widget—anything that even vaguely resembles an
affordance. This is usually not an issue if you have designers on the team. If
you’re letting the programmers design the user interface or are a programmer
designing a user interface, you need to be aware of it.
As with all of these pop culture trends in programming, this led to
unreadable code that was impossible to work with or fix as soon as it
faded from popular consciousness.
But this adherence to a specific aesthetic isn’t limited to designs. It’s also
an issue when it comes to the code itself.
The current trend is towards the aesthetics of correctness. Everything
has to look like it has strong or static typing. It doesn’t have to
really have static typing. That can all be made up after the fact in a
declaration file. It merely needs to have the aesthetics of types. Type
annotations everywhere, implementing logic through type system
trickery, and forcing any and all dynamism out of the system in the
name of correctness is the name of the game.
The programming pop culture favours specific code aesthetics based on the
trends of the day. I’m not talking about code style or formatting. The code in
a project should adhere to a single style, simple as that. The issue is that
the programming pop culture demands that code exhibit the latest popular
aesthetics of rigour, formality, and cleverness. Whether the code actually is
rigorous, formal, or clever matters less. A few years ago, as the popularity of
the Ruby programming language peaked, a certain dynamism and trickery were en
vogue. It didn’t matter if you were writing in Ruby, JavaScript, or
Objective-C. Your code had to have a level of “magic” to it. Metaprogramming,
syntax-hacking languages to create ad hoc Domain-Specific Languages, tricks
with extreme late binding, and more were frequent topics on developer weblogs
and forums. Even a phrase like “objective-c runtime metaprogramming” will date
you to a specific generation of native app developers almost down to a single
year.
A part of this trend is the unpopularity of the approaches and
languages that are seen as less rigorous. CSS is dropped in favour of
statically typed CSS-in-JS approaches. HTML is dropped in favour of a
strict inline XML-like markup format called JSX. Just a few years ago,
everybody in web development hated and dropped XML and XHTML
specifically because it was too strict and felt less dynamic and
flexible than HTML. At some point, pop culture will bore of this and
swing its attention back the other way.
As with all of these pop culture trends in programming, this led to unreadable
code that was impossible to work with or fix as soon as it faded from popular
consciousness.
It’s a fashion industry. Trends come; trends go. The lack of historical
awareness is considered by most to be a feature.
The current trend is towards the aesthetics of correctness. Everything has to
look like it has strong or static typing. It doesn’t have to really have static
typing. That can all be made up after the fact in a declaration file. It merely
needs to have the aesthetics of types. Type annotations everywhere,
implementing logic through type system trickery, and forcing any and all
dynamism out of the system in the name of correctness is the name of the game.
This rigour is useful in moderation. Static typing does prevent bugs.
Usually, they are the same sort of bugs unit testing prevents. Both
have immense value as tools to manage your software development.
Currently, the fashion is to favour static typing over unit testing for
establishing a certain base level of correctness in your code. At some
point, they are likely to switch again. They have a couple of times in
the past. That you could use both at the same time and get the benefits
of both doesn’t enter the discourse. Static typing with compile-time
correctness checks has its uses. So do dynamism, extreme late binding,
and metaprogramming. Most of these approaches can be used together, but
that isn’t how pop culture works. Pop culture demands there be only one
winner at a time. Choose one, not whichever works the best at each
time.
A part of this trend is the unpopularity of the approaches and languages that
are seen as less rigorous. CSS is dropped in favour of statically typed
CSS-in-JS approaches. HTML is dropped in favour of a strict inline XML-like
markup format called JSX. Just a few years ago, everybody in web development
hated and dropped XML and XHTML specifically because it was too strict and felt
less dynamic and flexible than HTML. At some point, pop culture will bore of
this and swing its attention back the other way.
Product development can’t indulge in being pop culture. Be wary of
these popularity contests.
It’s a fashion industry. Trends come; trends go. The lack of historical
awareness is considered by most to be a feature.
These issues with programming culture aren’t new.
This rigour is useful in moderation. Static typing does prevent bugs. Usually,
they are the same sort of bugs unit testing prevents. Both have immense value
as tools to manage your software development. Currently, the fashion is to
favour static typing over unit testing for establishing a certain base level of
correctness in your code. At some point, they are likely to switch again. They
have a couple of times in the past. That you could use both at the same time
and get the benefits of both doesn’t enter the discourse. Static typing with
compile-time correctness checks has its uses. So do dynamism, extreme late
binding, and metaprogramming. Most of these approaches can be used together,
but that isn’t how pop culture works. Pop culture demands there be only one
winner at a time. Choose one, not whichever works the best at each time.
Jamie Zawinski calls it the [10]“Cascade of Attention-Deficit
Teenagers” model. We can’t do much to change the nature of the field by
now—Alan Kay has certainly tried—but we can mitigate the harm done by
the trend-seeking. We can work to ensure that everybody on the team,
programmers and designers, is aligned, and have the same understanding
of what matters and how to accomplish it.
Product development can’t indulge in being pop culture. Be wary of these
popularity contests.
For that, you need everybody to understand the context they are working
in—the works of their field and how they are received. You need to
develop taste and understanding.
These issues with programming culture aren’t new.
You need research.
__________________________________________________________________
Jamie Zawinski calls it the [9]“Cascade of Attention-Deficit Teenagers” model.
We can’t do much to change the nature of the field by now—Alan Kay has
certainly tried—but we can mitigate the harm done by the trend-seeking. We can
work to ensure that everybody on the team, programmers and designers, is
aligned, and have the same understanding of what matters and how to accomplish
it.
Bonus Alan Kay quote on programming as a pop culture that I didn’t
include in the book:
For that, you need everybody to understand the context they are working in—the
works of their field and how they are received. You need to develop taste and
understanding.
But pop culture holds a disdain for history. Pop culture is all
about identity and feeling like you’re participating. It has nothing
to do with cooperation, the past or the future—it’s living in the
present. I think the same is true of most people who write code for
money. They have no idea where [their culture came from]—and the
Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural
resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was
man-made.
You need research.
Alan Kay, [11]Dr. Dobb’s Interview with Alan Kay
__________________________________________________________________
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[12]Out of the Software Crisis
Bonus Alan Kay quote on programming as a pop culture that I didn’t include in
the book:
[13]Out of the Software Crisis by Baldur Bjarnason
But pop culture holds a disdain for history. Pop culture is all about
identity and feeling like you’re participating. It has nothing to do with
cooperation, the past or the future—it’s living in the present. I think the
same is true of most people who write code for money. They have no idea
where [their culture came from]—and the Internet was done so well that most
people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather
than something that was man-made.
Software projects keep failing, not because we don’t have the right
team or tools but because our software development system is broken.
Out of the Software Crisis is a guide to fixing your software projects
with systems-thinking making them more resilient to change and less
likely to fail.
Alan Kay, [10]Dr. Dobb’s Interview with Alan Kay
[14]Systems-Thinking For Software Projects
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[15]WTF is a Framework?
[11]Out of the Software Crisis
[16]The response to Out of the Software Crisis has been amazing
[12]Out of the Software Crisis by Baldur Bjarnason
Software projects keep failing, not because we don’t have the right team or
tools but because our software development system is broken. Out of the
Software Crisis is a guide to fixing your software projects with
systems-thinking making them more resilient to change and less likely to fail.
[13]Systems-Thinking For Software Projects
[14] WTF is a Framework?
[15]The response to Out of the Software Crisis has been amazing
Join the Newsletter
Subscribe to the [17]Out of the Software Crisis newsletter to get my
weekly (at least) essays on how to avoid or get out of software
development crises.
Subscribe to the [16]Out of the Software Crisis newsletter to get my weekly (at
least) essays on how to avoid or get out of software development crises.
Join now and get a free PDF of three bonus essays from Out of the
Software Crisis.
Join now and get a free PDF of three bonus essays from Out of the Software
Crisis.
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You can also find me on [18]Mastodon and [19]Twitter
You can also find me on [19]Mastodon and [20]Twitter
References
References:
1. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/feed.xml
2. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/archive
3. https://softwarecrisis.dev/
4. https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/
5. https://illusion.baldurbjarnason.com/
6. mailto:baldur.bjarnason@gmail.com
7. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/
8. https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/
9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyIQKBzIuBY
10. https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
11. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm:978-3-319-90008-7/1.pdf
12. https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/
13. https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/
14. https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/
15. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/wtf-is-a-framework/
16. https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/ootsc-update/
17. https://softwarecrisis.dev/
18. https://toot.cafe/@baldur
19. https://twitter.com/fakebaldur
[1] https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/archive
[2] https://softwarecrisis.dev/
[3] https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/
[4] https://illusion.baldurbjarnason.com/
[5] mailto:baldur.bjarnason@gmail.com
[6] https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/
[7] https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyIQKBzIuBY
[9] https://www.jwz.org/doc/cadt.html
[10] https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bbm:978-3-319-90008-7/1.pdf
[11] https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/
[12] https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/
[13] https://softwarecrisis.baldurbjarnason.com/
[14] https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/wtf-is-a-framework/
[15] https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2022/ootsc-update/
[16] https://softwarecrisis.dev/
[19] https://toot.cafe/@baldur
[20] https://twitter.com/fakebaldur