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The Software Inferno
CowboyRobot writes "The Software Inferno is a tale that parallels The Inferno, Part One of The Divine Comedy written by Dante Alighieri in the early 1300s. That literary masterpiece describes the condemnation and punishment faced by a variety of sinners in their hell-spent afterlives as recompense for atrocities committed during their earthly existences. The Software Inferno is a similar account, describing a journey where 'sinners against software' are encountered amidst their torment, within their assigned areas of eternal condemnation, and paying their penance. Quoting: 'CANTO 6 - HERESY: ...The countess explained that these chaotically traveling souls were strongly at variance with well-established beliefs and laws of software engineering developed by experts on the subject. Their unabashed contempt for universally accepted truths spawned decision making that wrought great damage upon software projects in their charge. Some challenged Fred Brooks' sacred counsel in futile attempts to rise above their failings by adding new people with woefully insufficient qualifications to rescue already-late projects. Others flaunted their derision by disregarding software design patterns sanctified by the Gang of Four, instead opting for inelegance of their own in attempts to solve problems whose solutions were already proven, well known, and time-honored.'"
Posting from beta.
Breaking two lines. Is this being formatted right?
Thanks,
AC
We're the only audience of sheeple who might care. Alas...I skimmed the summary and still don't. Zzzzzz...
Gives me chills when I see people talking about tech like it was a religion.
Others flaunted their derision by disregarding software design patterns sanctified by the Gang of Four, instead opting for inelegance of their own in attempts to solve problems whose solutions were already proven, well known, and time-honored.
Says someone posting via heretical Von Neumann Machine, long live Turing Machines!
Posted via Android on ARM hosted in Linux on x86-64 running in 32 bit mode!
Those knowledgeable of Cybernetics, Genetics, or Information Theory emit the most holy evil-grin when confronted with the term "Design Pattern".
It's entertaining, typically weird article from Bell. They're a bit snarky but somewhat long-winded - his penchant to build classifications of things overrides any real deep-dive into what he's talking about. And his daughter appears in every article, I'm surprised there isn't a "17 types of annoying child" article yet.
His other complaints: UML, XML, Agile misuse/overuse - each with an article, blog post that has invented classifications.
Where's the one on "taxonomy joke" overuse?
Because I always thought there was a special place for those who could cram 7 GoF patterns into a HelloWorld, whether they needed them, or were ever ever ever going to extend or reuse the HelloWorld or not.
Coming up with a completely stupid name for a simple pattern doesn't make you a good programmer. The Group of 4 decided they would look at the "common" patterns used in programming and instead of doing something useful, they would just assign them pointless names. Anyone who quotes the Group of 4 with intention of using the names they came up with, generally, isn't a good programmer. A good programmer is busy writing / testing code and doesn't have the time or the need to read and remember books about how to use code patterns or best measures. The aspects you look for in code are as follows:
1. The code is fast, efficient and not bulky.
2. The code is secure.
3. The code is not locked to a single platform.
4. The code is written to complete it's required task and not for style and beauty above function.
If you are focusing on anything else then you aren't programming, you are wasting time and trying to be more then you are. A programmer is a programmer is a programmer, you are not an engineer or any other stupid name / label you want to give yourself. You want to go to programmers hell, simple, read code written by stuck up, over trained, programmers who think they are skilled and have a big mouth.
The number of university students / new grads I've had to fire is kind of shocking. They love to quote pattern names and complain about the use of certain syntax choices and the use of pointers, yet they never turn out usably good code. It's not just university students that have this problem, pretty much anyone who went to post secondary school with the intention of becoming a PROGRAMMER, NOT, SOFTWARE ENGINEER, with have this issue. Your job as a programmer is to turn out good code in a timely manner and once you leave that frame of mind you aren't doing your job. Do that for long enough and you should be fired, regardless of how many theoretical books agree with you, including the Group of 4. If my project was programmed using new age design methodology and methods it would have at least 7x more overhead and run 3x slower then it currently does. No one should put up with slow runtime and greater overhead because a bunch of programmers decided to write a book or many books. Once it runs well it needs to be stable and secure and then I've done my job.
This is just a slashvertisement for some bloke's paper. It's a reiteration of well known mantras, at best. Nothing to see here, move along.
I figured that out just by content. I hovered the mouse pointer over the first link, saw it lead to noplace likely to have real news, and decided I'm not playing that game.
TLDR. Too Lame, Didn't Read.
Seriously, the firehose readers that vote this crap up really need to clean up their act.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
They clearly had fun writing that for at least the exercise in wordsmithing alone. I imagine it must also be satisfying to banish your tormentors to their judgment. Unfortunately there didn't appear to be a place reserved for trolls.
Some other Infernos:
Inferno - Fun read.
Disco Inferno - Which Apple had fun with in this commercial.
Some people like this: The Towering Inferno Trailer
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle did the best take on the classic of European literature; anything else will merely be a pale, insipid imitation that makes the reader wonder why the author bothered.
Cranky educator.
Part of the fun of the Divine Comedy at the time was that specific individuals were shown being tormented, and this doesn't do that.
It totally should.
(Burn, baby, burn) Software inferno!
(Burn, baby, burn) Burn that mother down!
How many people here (a) have read the Divine Comedy and (b) worked as a programmer? I'm sure I'm not the only one, but we've got to be a pretty small audience.
Who do you think is the analog of Beatrice? Or Francesca da Rimini from Canto V?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
It does speak of it, but it does not necessarily specify the "eternal hell if you don't believe" stance that some denominations have promulgated.
There are several possibilities that are not at all easily dismissed by reference to scripture itself...
1. That it is spoken of allegorically
2. That it references "destruction of the soul" rather than "suffering of the soul" (per Christ's use of "destroy the soul in hell")
3. That it is a temporary, not permanent state
4. That it is the final dispensation of the truly evil, not simply on the basis of non-belief (otherwise a review of one's actions from the "Book of Life" seems rather superfluous)
I would exercise extreme caution in stating that one -knows- what God will do, as this is in a sense us telling God what he has to do, on a judgment that is explicitly stated to be made by him in the future (the "Last Judgment"--not a "Show Trial"), but...
I'd suggest taking a look at Conditionalism and its associated Annihilationism as stances that are quite harmonious with scripture, and address some arguments regarding "fairness"--one could say that atheists in general ultimately get exactly what they expect (and demand), per their own worldview.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Walk by any Apple store. ... where you just see people using devices like like because they generally work. You can go in, or not, it's your choice.
If you keep on walking you get to the Apple Haters. Now there's a religion, meaning they fervently believe in Apple being bad no matter what, and will not let you past until YOU believe it also.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Telling people there is no hell is like telling people you can fly if they walk off a cliff.
Except that it is much easier to establish the existence of cliffs than the existence of Hell.
Not unlike Camden, New Jersey.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Which hell did you have in mind that is so plainly spoken of as a "real place"? Sheol (Hebrew for the grave)? Hades (Greek for the grave)? Tartarus (not forever, not for people)? Gehenna (trash heap outside Jerusalem)?
Yes, those are all spoken of as "real places". None of them are plainly a "place where people go to live forever while they're being tortured", which is what "...much of what modern Christendom believes about hell..." and which is derived from Dante et al and not from the Bible.
Be careful. You have an uninitialized variable in line 1.
while(! is_hell_frozen() )
;
read_book();
Sleep your thread man!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Isn't that how most, if not all, scientific discoveries are made?
CANTO 6 - HERESY: ...The countess explained that these chaotically traveling souls were strongly at variance with well-established beliefs
Yeah, you know, I would rather be a heretic than be consumed by groupthink and the cargo-cult engineering it encourages.
I consider the deadliest sin of engineering unnecessary complexity, which comes in its worst forms from inappropriate and poorly implemented generalization.
I've seen a lot of this in the form of "frameworks" - especially homegrown ones - but also from faithful and meticulous application of GoF design patterns. Decompile SqlMetal for a canonical example.