Path: uuneo.neosoft.com!Starbase.NeoSoft.COM!not-for-mail From: claird@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (Cameron Laird) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,alt.books.reviews,misc.consumers.house Subject: Re: Personal Preference: The Devil in Disguise [LONG] Followup-To: comp.software-eng Date: 14 Sep 1994 16:03:33 -0500 Organization: NeoSoft Internet Services +1 713 684 5969 Lines: 94 Message-ID: <357of5$prk@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> References: <1994Sep1.131232.2084@chemabs.uucp> <34dfqs$2jd@news.c sus.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: starbase.neosoft.com Xref: uuneo.neosoft.com comp.software-eng:25775 alt.books.reviews:4950 misc.con sumers.house:80694 In article <34dfqs$2jd@news.csus.edu>, Dr. Richard Botting wrote: . . . >You can tell a real programer by the fact they have programs for >taking out the trash, doing dishes, and sorting laundry. For example >I have thought a lot about the optimal algorithm for matching up >pairs of socks.... . . . Dr. Botting wrote with a touch of irony. I'll offer here a book review that suggests more depth to the comparison. One of the most FAQs (frequently-argued quarrels) in comp.software-eng is "Won't attention to process issues rob programmers of their creativ- ity?" Some find guidance in Sun Tzu or kindergarten lesson plans; I look in Felton, Sandra 1984 The Messies Manual: The Procrast- inator's Guide To Good Housekeeping. Fleming H. Revell Company, Tarry- town, New York. 157 pages and read the definitive answer: Messies are intelligent people on the whole. We have high ideals and a worldwise perspec- tive. World hunger, dedication to the children and youth of our nation, art, music, literature, careers--these are areas that deserve our time. Dusting, moving a dish from one place to another--how can such things be important in the light of such weighty pursuits? They seem insignificant by comparison. The trouble is that if we are disorganized at home we can lose our chance to do some- thing about the problems we consider more important. How can we finish our book if we can't find the first six chapters of it? How can we organize a drive to ease world hunger if we can't locate the addresses of the people and organizations we need to help us? Mrs. Felton is simply right. It is typical of programmers to be far, far too creative--in domains that do not contribute usefully to their true goals. Mrs. Felton is a (reformed) Messy, she tells us, someone who spent decades asking herself "Why put the toothpast away if you are going to get it out again in a few hours? Why make the bed just to unmake it that evening? Is is practical to wash a few dishes? Why not wait till you have a whole sink full and do them all at once?" During those same decades, she worked *constantly* at house-cleaning, in contrast to her Cleany (also her neologism) friends who simply did the work and got on with their lives. Software professionals need to learn the same lesson. Use version control, schedule reviews, instrument for testability, learn object- orientation, respect your customers, pay bills on time, be good at business. comp.software-eng provides ample testimony that one can question the theoretical basis for all these rules; however, the people we admire--the ones delivering .VBX-s that get used, defining WWW, ray-tracing at ten times conventional speed, digitizing the human genome, creating the next version of TeX--are people who fol- low these rules. Mrs. Felton's book stands on its own, of course; even many non-program- mers profit from it. In fact, it's a jewel of the self-help genre. The competent (that's high praise from me; how can the big publishers permit as much confusion and muddiness and error as they do?) writing communi- cates the author's humanity well. She's serious--"The frustration of not being able to find things, the embarrassment of having company drop in without warning, the hard work that never gets anywhere--there is no way to make these things somehow all right. They sap the joy from life"--but wisely witty. Her counsel for working with family members is sound enough to apply also to co-workers or teammates. As a fan of engineering reviews, I particularly welcome the advice to "[r]emember people don't do what you expect, they do what you *in*spect." *The Messies Manual* balances the "theory" I've emphasized above with a wealth of specific observations about how Messies can make shoes, kitchen, mail, and other typical problem areas work for the reader, rather than the too-typical converse. It is a very, VERY practical book. -- Cameron Laird ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/users/claird/home.html claird@Neosoft.com (claird%Neosoft.com@uunet.uu.net) +1 713 267 7966 claird@litwin.com (claird%litwin.com@uunet.uu.net) +1 713 996 8546