From You Are Not a Gadget:
Little programs are delightful to write in isolation, but the process of maintaining large-scale software is always miserable. … Technologists wish every program behaved like a brand-new, playful little program, and will use any available psychological strategy to avoid thinking about computers realistically.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
sean mcbeth 02.03.10 at 08:05
Ain’t that the truth.
Actually, I like embarking on large projects for personal projects, because I see it as an opportunity to learn more about available tools past just programming languages. The programming language you select is often inconsequential compared to having the right tool chain to go with it.
John 02.03.10 at 08:12
I admire people like Michael Feathers and John Robbins who enjoy digging into large legacy projects, but that’s not how I prefer to earn a living.
Omar Gómez 02.03.10 at 19:13
Big programs are interesting. Programmers learn to to think about programs in terms of small quantities (lines of code, classes, etc). This comes from Universities where too much emphasis is put in computer science (syntax and algorithmic view).
Big system are complex beasts, you can’t use the programmer view. You need to identity structures in terms of cohesion, coupling, contracts, components, etc. You need to see beyond code. Wish Universities understands this.