Think (don't cargo cult)

http://reefpoints.dockyard.com/2013/11/15/think.html

by tomphoolery • 13 years ago

7 2 13 years ago

reefpoints.dockyard.com

kaishiro• 13 years ago

If more people followed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy), we could all go home earlier.

bazillion• 13 years ago

While I definitely agree with the unix philosophy in a lot of circumstance (thanks for linking that by the way -- have never seen that article) for the smallest common denominator programs that we can make, the typical program nowadays that people make money off of selling as a standalone product is an amalgamation of a lot of these modular components. For the most part, any modular component you want that does one thing and one thing only is already built in some form. It is the ability to properly mix and maintain the abstraction of these components' functions that is the programming philosophy for the new generation.

In a way, I tend to believe that the clash between the older programmers (who tend to intricately understand the underlying components that they manipulate) and the newer programmers (who have tend to be able to manipulate a lot of the built components much quicker) comes from the crossing of this philosophy threshold.

As far as the original article is concerned, the point is that we shouldn't just be following one philosophy or another just because some people that might be more intelligent than us created it (directly against this comment). You can cherry pick what paradigm works best for you in whatever situation you find yourself in, and change it if it's not working out as expected. It is exactly one's own skill that determines whether or not the philosophy one selects are correct for the situation.

Think (don't cargo cult)

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