From: Austin Ziegler <austin@...>
Date: 2003-11-20T15:27:50+09:00
Subject: Re: "stereotyping"

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 14:40:04 +0900, Simon Kitching wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-11-20 at 15:54, Michael Campbell wrote:
>> Simon Kitching wrote:
>>> Well, I'm a senior developer/team leader. I have been
>>> considering moving the team from "c" to ruby. However I have
>>> doubts that the lower-level programmers can handle development
>>> without any type-checking support. So we will probably move to
>>> either Java or c#.
>> What do you think you need to protect them /from/, exactly?
> No, it's more to protect me!

There are alternative mechanisms for doing that, though.

> It's to protect me from questions like:
> 
> "Hey, what kind of object is this method expecting? It isn't
> documented anywhere and I can't understand the source code".
>
> "Hey, I'm getting this message from the XXX library about do_foo
> not existing on parameter bar. I must be doing something wrong.
> How do I fix it?"

If this is in a core or extension library, this is a problem. If,
however, it's in a library written by your team, this is a huge
problem. Some of this could be fixed by tests.

> "Hey, I'm supposed to fix this library method. What parameters are
> people allowed to pass to it?"

Where's the design document? Where's the test cases? Why isn't the
library method documented in the first place?

> and the corollary question:
> "Hey, your team isn't making much progress on this project,
> despite this Ruby language you suggested. Why shouldn't I fire
> you?"

I think that's an unnecessary fear. Honestly.

-austin
--
austin ziegler    * austin@halostatue.ca * Toronto, ON, Canada
software designer * pragmatic programmer * 2003.11.20
                                         * 01.22.39