This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz
by James Robertson.
Original Post: Kent Beck on software
Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants
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Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general.
dW: What do you think about software quality? Beck: I wish developers would consider the enormous consequences of their actions. When I got my driver's license at 16, I was both elated and terrified; I had newfound freedom and responsibilities to go with it. Now, compare that feeling to when Microsoft sends me a new operating system. Do I have the same feeling? No, I think it's going to screw up my life for months. For how many decades and for how many millions of people has that negative emotion been created around software. I think it's such a shame we set our sights so low. Either you're stuck with software that works the way it works because you don't want to break it, or you get an upgrade that causes pain and anguish. I just want my stupid computer to work and it doesn't. That's not computing.
Of course, Kent migrated his work from Smalltalk to Java, so one could argue that he's being part of the problem, not part of the solution. He knows damn well that static typing is sub-optimal, and that there are far better solutions - Smalltalk, Python, Ruby, Lisp - than Java. If someone of his stature started speaking out on that topic, it might help.
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