Uncle Bob's product is Uncle Bob. If any software gets written, that's entirely coincidental.
Is Uncle Bob serious?
11–20 of 181 posts
Re: Is Uncle Bob serious?
#12Once again, because I never really get a clear answer for this question: why do we care? How is this not just another instance of "random dude wrong about something"? There are tens of millions of those.
Re: Is Uncle Bob serious?
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They have higher standards and whatnot Note that "higher standards" in civil engineering usually boils down to a) having standards at all instead of fuzzy process management frameworks b) these standards often boil down to "do this task/product with this regulatory mandated large margin of error" and c) building according to specification (i.e. having a reliable specification in the first place), which is exactly h…
> Embracing agile (as his ThoughtWorks contract requires him to do) while lamenting quality and lack of professionalism, as Mr Martin does, is extremely dishonest. Why exactly? I fail to see the connection between lack of quality and embracing agile.
For the reasons explained in the previous project. A source of quality in mechanical and civil engineering is that they have rigid standards, legal regulations, and thorough specifications. These cost a lot of money, sacrifice a lot of flexibility, and add a lot of time, but they work.
Agile development methods do create useful software quickly and cheaply, but are very dissimilar to this sort of strict framework.
As an employee of ThoughtWorks, he can't suggest increased regulation and specification, because he's paid to suggest less of those things. It's disingenuous, then, to complain about a lack of the results of those processes when he's advocating a method that lacks those processes.
Re: Is Uncle Bob serious?
#14Lots of talk here about better tools and better coding practices and better discipline, but what about better languages? Some languages make it impossible to make the kind of errors that other languages allow. And I think the languages will just keep getting safer and safer.
Re: Is Uncle Bob serious?
#15Lots of talk here about better tools and better coding practices and better discipline, but what about better languages? Some languages make it impossible to make the kind of errors that other languages allow. And I think the languages will just keep getting safer and safer.
I'd sum language up under tools for the purpose of this discussion.
Re: Is Uncle Bob serious?
#16Once again, because I never really get a clear answer for this question: why do we care? How is this not just another instance of "random dude wrong about something"? There are tens of millions of those.
Couldn't the same be said of yours or any other's comments here on HN?
Re: Is Uncle Bob serious?
#17Incentivization and transparency combined is also a good method, which should be applied when possible in addition to other methods. So in case it is possible, safety-critical code should be open source, and there should be very high rewards for detecting serious issues.
Re: Is Uncle Bob serious?
#18Once again, because I never really get a clear answer for this question: why do we care? How is this not just another instance of "random dude wrong about something"? There are tens of millions of those.
This person wrote a series of books about clean code which are sometimes recommended to junior programmers. Some people have a high opinion of him.
It's a good thing that his claims and experience are being questioned.
Re: Is Uncle Bob serious?
#19Uncle Bob's product is Uncle Bob. If any software gets written, that's entirely coincidental.
Thank you. He is all about creating a cult of personality. The opening of Clean Code, with its pictures of other respected people and quotes and then the “what about Me” is all about putting him on the same level as all those folks. So, appeal to authority, and then run with “be a human linter”.
Also: can we stop calling him “Uncle Bob”, because it’s frankly kinda creepy and paternalistic.
Re: Is Uncle Bob serious?
#20It is my continued theory that Bob Martin is a double agent, whose mission is to discredit TDD in the wider software community by using an infuriating, backlash-inducing writing style.
Unfortunately he failed at that and people started to believe him.