The complexity cult in "software engineering"

I've written before about the affliction of some programming "gurus" that leads them to believe that design complexity is a sign of "cleverness", when, in reality, it leads to maintainability problems.

There are certainly programmers ¹ who develop brilliant frameworks that seriously reduce the burdens of application developers. But I get the feeling that they are far rarer than the wannabes who create complexity because it's part of their job descriptions, at the behest of clueless cargo-cultist buzzword-oriented managers, or because their inflated egos deny them the ability to realise their own limitations. A few years of experience and knowing some design patterns does not a "software architect" make.

Most developers that produce business systems would probably do better if they came to terms with their mediocrity, and focused all their efforts on adding value to their customers using ready-made tools and frameworks produced by others wherever possible ².

Footnotes

^1. You could call them "software architects", if you like pretentious and fairly inaccurate metaphorical titles
^2. ie almost all of the time. This doesn't mean that design should be thrown out, merely that re-inventing the wheel for the sake of intellectual masturbation should be shunned.

Classical music

In recent months I obtained some classical music mp3 collections, and I have started appreciating the genre.

It's interesting how deeply embedded some of the tunes are in popular culture. From the absurd "bananana" advertising adaptation by now defunct the Banana Board in the late 1980s (I think - I was still quite young at the time), based on Beethoven's 5th Symphony, to the movies, these songs have always been in the background.

It's nice to be able to put names to the tunes.

Analyze this

Would you work for a company that relied on handwriting analysis to vet potential candidates? I wouldn't¹.

^{1 unless I was desperate for a job}

Mahmoud al-Zheimers

America's Daily Show examines the Bush Administration's interesting stance on human life:



Watching the clip above makes one wonder how South African politicians would react if they were subjected to parody. Oh wait nevermind...

Middle East

I'll refrain from commenting on the developments involving Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Iran since:

1. I don't consider my opinions informed enough on the issue.


2. There are too many thought police around.

However, on the issue of Iraq, I do have a question: What the f*$# was the Bush Administration thinking when it decided to invade Iraq?

2010 World Cup pessimism

For some reason, a lot of people I've spoken to seem to think that South Africa won't be able to handle the 2010 World Cup. The media has picked up on this meme. I just don't understand why there is so much pessimism.

South Africa is not the first third-world country to host the championships.

The 2002 World Cup was held in South Korea, which is technically still at war with North Korea.

The government seems to have been asleep at the transport policy wheel in the last few years, but four years is enough time to start working on the issue. While it is obvious that we have transport problems, in a worst-case scenario, I'm sure that a temporary fix could be thought up in time for the few weeks of the World Cup.

Crime can also be stabilized and reduced, if the government developed the will to carry out its primary obligation - the protection of its citizens.

It is possible, but highly unlikely, that political instability could be a problem in 2010.

I just don't understand why there is such a surprising degree of pessimism around the 2010 World Cup. I see the challenges it presents as a way of shaking up arrogant and unaccountable parts of the government, and as presenting a great opportunity for improving South Africa. Losing the World Cup after it was awarded to us would be a disastrous vote of no-confidence in South Africa that simply cannot be allowed to happen.

This blog is not dead- it was just waiting for Telkom

Waiting for an ADSL connection in South Africa is hugely annoying. Luckily I don't rely on a home internet connection for my livelihood, otherwise I would have been in huge trouble.

While Telkom may still be redeemed once they get some competition, I hope the SABC gets broken up - soon.

Enough with the "engineering" already

Engineers are highly trained professionals who apply scientific methods to solve practical problems, at least that's what I think of when I hear the term.

I am no engineer, but if I was an engineer, I would be a little pissed off that every other monkey who fixes computers or throws together websites calls himself an "engineer".

When it comes to "software engineering", I think that the term needs to be abandoned, in place of a better description (although to be fair, most of the professional programmers I've met call themselves "developers" rather than "engineers").

Post inspired by this (rather dense) article.

The plague of diminished expectations

Over at Commentary, there is a post about Eskom's affirmative action policies. While I don't know whether the complaint has any merit, it did get me thinking about affirmative action in general.

I recently met a financial advisor, who happened to be black. He was a fairly pleasant person, but he didn't give me good advice. In fact, he didn't give me any advice at all. I still seriously considered giving him my business, because I felt sorry for him, because he was black and previously disadvantaged.

I am sure that there are black financial advisors who are highly competent, and white financial advisors who are totally incompetent. But if a white advisor had given the same level of service as the person who I met, I would not have even dreamed of entrusting him with my money.

Fortunately, I met another advisor who gave much better advice, and I appointed him instead.

I had lower expectations of blacks than of whites, and so I was willing to excuse poor service merely because the person was black. This kind of attitude, perpetuated by affirmative action, cannot be good for South Africa as a whole, nor is it useful for those who truly want to compete on an equal footing.

Which brings us back to Eskom, and affirmative action in technical fields: the laws of physics and engineering are hard and unforgiving and offer no quarter to the forces of political correctness.

In "softer" fields, incompetence can be overlooked in the name of political correctness, but if a road falls apart due to poor maintenance, or a generator breaks down due to negligence it's pretty hard to make excuses, since the mess is visible for all to see.

The hard failures we are seeing in the engineering sector may not actually be related to affirmative action, but they are visible (and very difficult to cover up), and they do highlight the need for hiring only the best, and most competent people, regardless of race.

IEC Website ASP.NET bugs

I was just wondering why the IEC website seems so buggy.

It appears to be running in debug mode, so I am pretty sure that the detailed ward report was being blocked earlier because .NET thought the query string looked suspiciously like an XSS (cross site scripting) attack. It now seems to have been yanked from the site. Fixing the problem should not be too difficult.

Of course, things are probably different in the trenches and I'm sure that people are working hard to fix the errors, but it would have been nice if the bugs had been ironed out before the elections.