The Duct Tape Programmer

It’s amazing where you can find enlightenment. I ran across Joel’s article on the Duct Tape Programmer and finely felt like I wasn’t alone. Somehow, I felt less guilty about those systems that are beautiful in their function and not in their form; those systems that happily teeter on the edge of collapse, happily performing their job without error. Joel describes this mindset as follows:

…is what I would call a duct-tape programmer. And I say that with a great deal of respect. He is the kind of programmer who is hard at work building the future, and making useful things so that people can do stuff. He is the guy you want on your team building go-carts, because he has two favorite tools: duct tape and WD-40. And he will wield them elegantly even as your go-cart is careening down the hill at a mile a minute. This will happen while other programmers are still at the starting line arguing over whether to use titanium or some kind of space-age composite material that Boeing is using in the 787 Dreamliner.

link: The Duct Tape Programmer – Joel on Software

To me, it is about making things that work. It is an engineering perspective. Not the nouveau engineering blend of design and function, but the concept of distilling varied knowledge into a functional solution to a problem. It is not the scientific search for truth and beauty. It is the maker, the craftsman, who just wants to get the job done. Maybe that is not for the production line, but sometimes solutions don’t need to be reproduced.

I don’t mean to imply that there are not places for reproducible solutions, for simpler software, for good design, and for appropriate processes. Instead, I mean to say that we are coming to terms, as a community, that not everything has to be done the same way. There are some things for which duct tape is the right answer.