Minimalism? Programming? Huh?

Last week, I was at the Strange Loop conference, and it was a great conference. It inspired one blog post that managed to piss some Clojure people off. So here is another. This time I'm going after the closing keynote, Alex Payne. Here are his slides, including detailed notes.

Strange Loop 2009 Keynote: Minimalism in Computing

View more presentations from Alex Payne.

So where to begin... Even though I am going to harsh on this, I will give it very high marks. Why? Because it was thought provoking. If something makes you think long and hard about how and why you do your job, that is a good thing. I worry about people who do not question their assumptions on a regular basis.
Ok, so now on to what you've been waiting for -- the harshness. I hate software engineering analogies. Well, not all, but most. I hate when people try to romanticize about what they do by making a far-fetched analogy to something more glamorous. If you're a programmer, you're not a rock star. You're not an artist. You're not a musician. You're not even a scientist. Sorry. Despite having the word "architect" in my official job title, I would add that you're not an architect either.

You're a programmer. At best, you're an engineer, and that is really stretching it at times. So obviously if I find it ridiculous to compare programming to things like creating art or making music, it seems even more ridiculous to compare the output of programming to art or music.

That being said, I enjoy programming. It is not just a job. I also take pride in my work. I like to show off my code as much as the next guy.

From this perspective, I can definitely appreciate Alex's thoughts on minimalism. Or perhaps more generally, associating some subjective qualities with programming. If an analogy to art or construction or whatever helps one express those subjective qualities, then fine. Just don't forget who you are, and maybe even try to find some pride in just that.

Now I should really end this post now, on kind of a feel good note. But I won't. Instead, I want to touch on some of the *ahem* deeper thoughts that Alex's talk provoked. I was reminded of a paper I read several years ago that tried to explain two obviously overly general (and probably not politically correct) things: why Americans are good at software but not cars, while the Japanese are good at cars, but not software. I tried to find a link to this paper, and was quite sure that I had saved it in Delicious. However I could not find, and I'm convinced that Delicious lost it. Maybe it fell out of cache...

Anyways, the crux of the argument is that Americans are good at getting something done quickly, even though the quality may be poor. So we are good innovators, but terrible craftsmen. This is a good fit for software, but obviously not cars.

If you accept this idea, and it has its merits, then in a world of low quality, rapidly written code, is there any room for subjective qualities? Why should you take any pride in your work at all if its value is directly proportional to how quickly you can produce it, throw it away, and move on to something else? To some degree, doesn't the software world's affection with agile development codify these almost nihilistic ideals? Perhaps the propensity to try and compare programming to art is simply an act of desperation caused by the realization that you'd be better off giving up on good design and instead you should invest in duct-tape.

Anyways, this is a close-to-home topic for me. My day job often involves telling developers the "right" way to do something, and the more unsavory flip-side of this, telling developers when they've done things the "wrong" way. You don't make a lot of friends, but I'm an INTJ so it works for me. Every once in awhile, I work with a programmer who writes beautiful code. Yeah, I said it. Any such programmer knows that they write good code, even if they don't like to talk about it. When you write good code, you constantly see bad code around you, and you can't help but get a big ego. I always compliment the good code, and it always surprises the arrogant pricks. They think I'm blown away and have never seen such good code. In reality, I just feel sorry for them.