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0 pointsChrisMarshallNY4y ago0 comments

Well, I don't really like thinking of myself as some kind of "elite atrteest," or whatever. There's lots of people that are better than I am. I've met them, and worked with them. I spent most of my career, as the dumbest guy in the room, and I'm smarter than the average bear. It just seems that the bar for "average" is pretty damn low, these days, so what used to be considered "average," is now considered "too complicated to understand."

I'm a pretty normal chap, and I work very well, on a team. I spent my entire career, doing just that. If you want to assume that I'm a jerk, I guess that's your prerogative; but I'm not. I'm a really decent person. In another world, we might actually find a lot in common, and have a great relationship, but in InternetWorld™, we have to be enemies. Not sure what that buys you, but it's a free country, I guess.

I don't have a "patron." I'm working for free, for a 501(c)(3), doing an app for a nonprofit. It's pretty much my show. I spent thirty years, working on other people's code, and watching them destroy it, so I like working on my own code, and having it done right.

Oh, and that server that I wrote? It took about ten years, to find a team that was capable of managing it properly. When they did, it became a world standard, and I was happy to step away from it; pretty much completely. It's used by thousands of people; every day. That advanced technique that I used is exactly why it lasted so long, and was able to be localized and extended. The core code is still the ancient code that I wrote in 2008. It works great, and folks haven't found a need to change it. The fact that I can hook it into the modern app that I'm writing now, is testament to its Quality.

Also, it's free code, for altruistic purposes. I donated ten years of my life to it. It is not hyperbole to say that it has saved many lives.

If you feel that's not something to be encouraged, then I don't know what to say.

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jameshart4y ago· 1 in thread

Well no, please let’s not be enemies.

So let me start by saying I have a ton of admiration for the work you’ve done based on that resume - I agree it’s a worthy contribution and you should be proud.

But please don’t mistake my original reaction as being to your actual body of work, but rather to your initial characterization of a method of delivering software.

In particular you were characterizing a development approach of ‘one hard-to-replace cranky old guy’ versus ‘a team of cheap easily replaced inexperienced devs’ - as being alternatives a manager could choose between in order to get a project done. And casting your vote in favor of, it seems, the solo craftsman.

If you are going to really recommend that people who want software developed should, in general look for a highly skilled individual developer to solo the project and leave it in a state where it will take a lengthy dedicated search to find anyone capable of modifying the resulting code, then I’m sorry if my reaction to that was to (perhaps with more sarcasm than is strictly constructive, but we are all performing for a crowd when we post on the Internet) try to suggest that that might not be a particularly universal or sustainable model.

If that isn’t actually how your project operates - with a business funding the development and having the power to choose between those approaches - then my critique doesn’t even apply to your project, so you have no reason at all to take the criticism personally. I am not my code, and I am also not the examples I use in discussions on the Internet.

ChrisMarshallNYOP4y ago

Well, I'll admit that "the cranky old man" trope was a bit of a deliberate goad, on my part, but that's mostly because this is pretty much how I am always perceived. It's really sad, because it's very far from the truth, and, if people spend more than thirty seconds, skimming what I write (and I know that I'm prolix), they can figure out that's not me. If you check my LinkedIn, you'll see a ton of testimonials, from folks I've worked with, over the years, saying how rewarding our relationship was.

I will admit, 100%, that I'm a "Quality nut." I consider my work to be a craft, and I take tremendous personal pride in it. If it requires advanced techniques, to achieve the ends, then that is what it takes. I generally don't even bother setting up a bug tracking system for my work, as there are so few issues. GH Issues is generally fine.

I will also admit, 100%, that I'm pretty appalled at what passes for "quality code," these days. I won't go ripping into the works of others; especially if it earns them money, and people are willing to pay for it, but just because everyone else does it, is no reason for me to do it; even if it means that I do it alone.

The project that I'm working on now, I describe as "ambitious." That means that it is "ambitious" for me[0]. To many folks, they wouldn't even dream of a single person, writing something of this magnitude, but I do stuff like that, on a regular. I've been shipping stuff, for my entire adult life. Because it was written by one single person, from napkin sketch, to shrinkwrap, it has great integrity, and extremely high Quality.

There's good people out there. There always have been. They do great work; usually orders of magnitude better than "average" work. It's worth it to track them down, and to hang onto them.

I managed a guy that is "on the spectrum." He could be difficult to manage, but we worked together for almost 27 years; 25 of which, I was his boss. He was better than I will ever be, and still is (just not working for me). It was a privilege and an honor to work with him, and to have him as an employee. He had a high school diploma, and regularly stunned the Ph.Ds in Japan, with his work.

It, too, was pretty inscrutable code, but it was also often 100X faster and more accurate than stuff done the "average" way.

[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/thats-not-what-ships...

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