Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Definition-by-Dysfunction

 I've done it. You've seen me.

You've done it. I watched you do it.

We've probably argued about it.

The Defining Dysfunctions

I published a blog post some time ago on the Industrial Logic website about programming together vs programming under surveillance. It's a relatively simple piece, and it identifies a problem we have in the world when it comes to just about any technique or discipline.

When I suggested that people mistake group programming for working under surveillance, an incredulous reader exclaimed “How could it possibly be anything else!?”

So here's the thing: a person had a bad experience where instead of actually researching what pair programming is and how it works, they just sat down at a keyboard with another person and tried "doing pair programming" without any pre-study or preparation. They ended with one person bored, watching the other program.  

This is a widely-known dysfunction or "failure pattern" known as "Worker/Watcher." It's not how pair programming is done. 

The two people who had this one unpleasant, uninformed, wasteful experience came into it with little more than a sound bite ("two people coding together"), guessed at how it was done ("one person types"), and had a poor experience. 

Since they didn't start with a good definition of pair programming, that experience became the definition of pair programming. 

They had a defining dysfunction. 

Unless something new happens, they will forever see pair programming as wasteful and pointless practice.

Is that the real definition of pair programming? 

Is that what it's about and how it's done? 

Not remotely. but it is the one touch-point they have -- the one experience that they have had of it, and "pair programming" is the name of that experience now.

Do they want to try it again? Clearly not. They know what it is, and it's nonsense. 

They will likely take to social media to decry the BS that is pair programming and save everyone else from this wasteful and unprofitable behavior.

You and I have likely done the same. 

Give those complainers some credit, because at least they tried it (or something that they imagined was it) first.

Some Examples Might Be Useful Here

I ranted against scrum™for years, because I let the dysfunctions I routinely see become the definition of the process for me. If anyone were to actually try doing scrum™it would be a pretty good way of working, but nobody does.

Sadly, a lot of people in that space have adopted the defining dysfunctions. As far as they are concerned the "right way" to do scrum™ is to have a titled person assign individual work tickets to developers, who strive to serve the maximum number of tickets per fortnight to raise the velocity of the team -- striving to do "twice the work in half the time" (a soundbite). This isn't remotely what the defining document of the scrum™ method describes but it is what is often taught as "doing scrum."

Are you an agile hater because it's all Jira tickets, meetings, estimation, and work crammed in to meet artificial deadlines? I'd hate that too. I do hate that. It's just not agile. it's not even scrum™.

Do you hate agile because agile is "no documentation," "no design," and "no estimates"?  Well, that's a worthy distaste. It's also a mischaracterization.

Do you hate TDD because you have to write all the tests first, and you don't even know what shape the answer is going to take, so it's impossible? Well, that's a bad process, and it's not TDD. It's not the definition of TDD, it's just a failure mode.

Why Bother Trying?

Sometimes people don't even have to have a bad experience to adopt a defining dysfunction. They hear a sound bite or title and imagine dysfunctions. They (efficiently) go straight to disdaining the practice based on their imagined defining dysfunctions.

Do you think that Psychological Safety means you can't ever say anything that might possibly upset someone? Does Radical Candor mean that you can say whatever you want without consequence? Wrong, and wrong. Those are defining guesses at dysfunction

If we only guess at a discipline or a philosophy or a behavior and don't actually bother to investigate what it's intended to be, what it really means, and how people actually perform it then we don't have the basis for an honest opinion. If we have only experienced it as a bad attempt at a good idea we haven't formed a valid opinion. 

We're Too Smart For That!

Have you jumped to conclusions based on naive attempts or imagination alone?

I'm betting we both have.  It's a human thing, and we're all human. It doesn't much matter how smart or experienced you are -- you've done this. I might just be projecting, but I've seen too many examples to believe it to be less than universal. Please prove me wrong!

I'm willing to bet that you've done so this week. Let's both look out for these mistakes, because I'm betting that we could be more successful at many things if we took the time to understand them.



Listicle on Flow and Teamwork

Some article links related to solo vs group, flow, productivity, and predictability.

Monday, January 15, 2024

Fundamentally Wrong

The Problem

An article has been shared with me by several friends and also by some critics, and some people who are both, describing how TDD is fundamentally wrong, and doing test-after-development is better.

To be fair, the process described here is fundamentally wrong:



The problems with step #1 would indeed lead to the wasteful problems described below it. The recommendation here would certainly be better than the process described above:



TDD Is Fundamentally Wrong is Fundamentally Wrong


Now, the problem with this article is more fundamental than the problem being described.

TDD does not mean "Write all the tests then all the code"

It has never meant that.

That is not TDD.

That is some other misbegotten travesty that has no name.


This is the fifth or sixth time I've heard anyone describe TDD as writing all the tests first. In all cases except one, it has been described by people who self-describe as being anti-TDD, and who write articles decrying the foolishness that they identify as TDD (which is not TDD).

I have never seen anyone do TDD that way -- even unsuccessfully.  I have never seen anyone even try to do TDD that way. I would never sit by while someone tried to do that and called it TDD. That's simply not the process.

The one time that I read an article that actually recommended doing that, it was from a Microsoft publication early in the XP/Agile days. The public outcry was great and sudden, and the article was retracted. I don't think I've ever seen anyone else recommend that approach,  because that approach is so obviously flawed and was never the process used by original XP teams.

So What Is TDD?


TDD was originally described as a three-step dance that repeats over and over as one develops code.

You can take that straight from the horse's mouth (so to speak):



To these three steps, we (at Industrial Logic) added a fourth and final step.  Others may also have independently added this 4th step, I don't know.

  1. Write a test that does not pass, and in fact cannot pass, because the functionality it describes does not exist.  This failing test is the RED step, so-called because test-running programs generally produce the results of a failed test run colored red.
  2. Write the code that passes the test.  When the test passes, it is typical that the test-running program will present the results colored green, so this is often called the GREEN step. The code may not be optimal or beautiful, but it does (only) the thing the test(s) require it to do.
  3. Refactor the code and test so that both are readable, well-structured, clean, simple, and basically full of virtue (so far).  Refactoring requires the presence of tests, so this way we can refactor as soon as the code passes the tests, rather than waiting until after all the code for our feature/story/task is finished. We refactor very frequently.
  4. Integrate with the code base. This will include at least making a local commit. Most likely it will be a local comment and also a pull from the main branch (preferably git pull -r). More than half the time, it also includes a push to the shared branch so everyone else can benefit from our changes and detect any integration issues early.


 We repeat this cycle for the next test. The whole cycle may repeat 4-10 times an hour.


We do 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3-4, we do not do 111111111-222222222-44444-(maybe someday)333.  These are not batched.

Was It A Misunderstanding of the List Method?

Some people misunderstood Kent Beck's List Method, in which you begin with a step 0 of writing down a list of the tests you think you will need to pass for your change to be successful (see the screen shot and link to Kent Beck's article). 

Note that you only make a list of tests. You do not write them all in code.

As you enter the TDD cycle, you take a test from the list. That may be the first test, the easiest test, the most essential test, or the most architecturally significant test. You follow the 4-step (or 3-step) dance as above. 

If you realize a test is unnecessary, you scratch it off the list. Don't write tests if the functionality they describe is already covered by an existing test.

As you make discoveries, you add new tests to the list. That discovery may lead you to scratch some unwritten tests off the list. That's normal.

Eventually, you will note that all the tests on your list have been scratched out. Either you implemented them, or you realized they're unnecessary. This applies to the tests you discovered as well as the original list.

You've done everything you can think of doing that is relevant to this task, so you must be done. This is doubly true if you have a partner also thinking with you, or even more certain if you have a whole ensemble cast working with you.

You never had to predict the full implementation of the features and write tests against that speculative future state.

It's a tight inner cycle, not a series of batches.

Do I disagree with the article, then?


Indeed, the "write all tests first" would only work for the most trivial and contrived practice example. It would never suffice in real work where 11/12ths of what we do is learning, reading, and thinking.

As far as the process being unworkable, I totally agree.

As far as that process being TDD, I totally disagree. 

That characterization of TDD is fundamentally wrong.


Friday, January 5, 2024

Python Listicle!

People often ask me (directly, or just generally posting to some social site) how they can learn Python quickly.  

Learning Python is one of those things where one can begin quite easily and quickly, but there is some depth to the language that one will want to understand and use once one gets past the most elementary early uses. 

If you are learning from tutorials, you might want to follow along in a REPL. You can try running Python locally (see ipython and/or bpython), as a Jupyter notebook, or in Repl.it if you want to keep your local machine Python-free for the time being).

You will probably want to install an IDE, though. There are many Python IDEs and Editors in the world, but PyCharm is the king of them all. Nothing else even comes close.

So, here are some great places to start:
  • Learn X In Y Minutes is great for experienced developers who are unfamiliar with the syntax and idioms of Python. It's all learn-by-example and is highly recommended for programmers who are exploring Python for the first time.
  • For less experienced developers, consider the official Beginner's Guide or the W3 Schools tutorial first.
  • Regardless of your level, you will want to bookmark the Official Docs which include reference material and tutorial material.
  • You will get a lot of good tips and deeper lessons from Arjan Codes on YouTube, or the many excellent lessons at Real Python. This is true whether you are an expert, intermediate, or beginner. There is a lot of content to explore, so don't try to take it all in over the course of a weekday.
  • A language without a great standard library is just a syntax. The Python Module of the Week gives some of the best in-depth exposition you can find. Definitely spend time there!
  • The Python community has created so many additional libraries at The Python Package Index. Here you can search, research, and learn about the many frameworks and libraries that make Python the best choice for so many jobs in real-world applications.
  • Every feature you'll use started as one of the Python Enhancement Proposals (PEPs). Python PEPs are to Python what the RFPs are for the internet and the worldwide web.  If you need to deeply understand a feature's purpose and intention, this is the place to go.
  • What's New In Python is a crucial resource for experienced developers to keep up with changes in the language. Besides being a bullet list of new features, there's some very good expository writing there and links to the relevant PEPs.

That is a lot, I know, but if you choose one of these resources according to your needs at the moment, I think you will be well satisfied. 

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Leadership.

 I have this very simple/simplistic view on leadership.

People will become a follower if:
a) They believe the person is competent
b) They will personally benefit from that person's competence
Whether it's a minister, a businessperson, a writer, a local organizer, or a criminal doesn't matter all that much.

We like to impart character and integrity to our leaders, and we like to pretend that we chose them because of their superior traits, but it doesn't matter as much as we would like to pretend. If those were really the criteria, we would never fall for con men and tricksters.
Remember. that people followed some pretty unsavory characters in the past and many do now.

I had to chew on this for years, because people can be radical followers of some pretty awful characters. Why would they be so blind to the character of their heroes?

It seems consistent now, that it's down to two factors.
The perceptions don't even have to be correct. Sometimes confidence masquerades as competence. In politics, business, religion, or social life the bombastic and dynamic personality is often chosen over the quietly competent because confidence looks like competence to the outsider.

Some people speak with such conviction that others are tricked into believing they know what they're talking about.
It always comes down to people "backing the winner" - the good/bad guy who is "on our side" and who is aligned with our interests. They're "going to win" so we want to be on their side, and benefit from that support.
Their competence will benefit us, so they're the "good guy."
That draws followers.
It defines leaders.

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

Choose your Expression: Structural Matching, IF-ELSE, and Dictionaries

 So, I have a command line utility that collects and presents some time-series data.

What it is isn't important, but dates are involved.

You can specify start dates and/or end dates with options --after and --until.  If you specify neither, you get everything.

This programming idea is not so interesting on its own, and I have multiple expressions that all work just fine. It's not a programming puzzle I am here to present.

Instead, I'm curious about which version speaks to you, which teaches you, which repulses you. 

More than that, I'm interested in WHY. 

Here is an if-the-else version:


Here is a similar version using a dictionary:



And one that uses structural matching:



Some people will naturally prefer if/else for the simple reason of familiarity. They see a lot of if/then/else logic, and so there isn't much to learn or think about. They may call it "simpler' but it is not. 

The dictionary version has more parts, but they're very simple parts, and all the actual work is done in the first and last sentence. 

The structural matching is using newer syntax, and is both less verbose than the if/else and more verbose than the dictionary version.

Which strikes you as the most valuable expression of the idea? 

Which would you rather write?

Which would you rather edit?

Which would you rather test? 

What is your reasoning behind the appeal of your chosen method (pun intended).




Wednesday, August 30, 2023

CSS Specificity Rundown

 CSS really is fun. 

No, seriously. I'm not being sarcastic here. 

Even though I've been in software a long, long, long time, I hadn't really studied CSS before last year (shocking, I know) and so I've been behind in my training. 

I had an opportunity to dive in more, and all was going well until I started playing with media queries and ran into a specificity problem that wasn't so obvious (to me, though it may have been to you).

So, to help people who are treading the same path, here are some aids on specificity:


* W3 Schools has a fun "try it and learn" approach to general CSS Specificity

* Saucelabs specifically breaks down specificity and media queries

* Halodoc provides some best practices to avoid troubles.

* Specificity with Darth Vader and Stormtroopers and stuff at smashing magazine.


These should get you past the worst of your troubles nicely. If you do get stuck, then it's always nice to experiment with a local HTML/CSS document or maybe fire up a REPL.IT instance for HTML, CSS, and JS. It's all fun.

PS: Because we need it so often, here is a CSS Selector Cheat Sheet.