I saw the article Refactoring reminiscent of high school algebra on Artima yesterday and it made me remember a new connection of my own. In the article, David Goodger is working on a refactoring problem that is turning out to be worse than expected. After a little reflection, he manages to solve the problem. But… Read More »
ACM Queue often has very insightful articles, and this one is no exception. The article ACM Queue – Death by UML Fever – Are you (or your developers) sick? covers a major problem in software development in a somewhat humorous fashion. I’ve seen several variations of this problem, but I never thought of it as… Read More »
Why is it that some people regularly suggest that someday soon we won’t need programmers? I’ve recently been seeing this as part of the IT outsourcing debate. But, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen it. The first time I saw this meme was shortly after I started programming professionally 17 years ago. I talked… Read More »
I’ve already written some of my ideas about paradigms, but the most important point still remains. I maintain that the real benefit of a paradigm is not the way of thinking that it defines, but the contrast between this way of thinking and others. Almost every programmer I’ve ever met that only knows one paradigm… Read More »
In my weblog entry Programmer Musings: Paradigms Lost from about five days ago, I talked about some of the negative effects of programming paradigms. That entry could give the impression that I don’t believe in new paradigms. Nothing could be further from the truth. However, I think the main benefit of new programming paradigms is… Read More »
An earlier weblog entry, Programmer Musings: Paradigms limit possible solutions, spent some time on what paradigms do for programming. Now, I’d like to consider a slightly different take on programming paradigms. Why do programming paradigms seem to take on the force of religion for so many in the software field?
Different paradigms are basically different ways of thinking about or looking at problem solving. Programming paradigms usually also include ways of organizing code or design. The main purpose of any paradigm is to reduce the number of possible solutions to a problem from infinity to a small enough number that you have a chance of… Read More »
In some legends and in fantasy, there is the concept of a True Name. Once you know someone’s true name, you have power over them. To guard against problems with this most people would commonly use a use name that everyone actually uses to refer to them to keep their true name safe. In programming,… Read More »