I haven't finished the whole text, but once I started to grok what the author was describing I immediately thought of bloated, messy software/webapps/etc as a sort of code-traption. I think...
I haven't finished the whole text, but once I started to grok what the author was describing I immediately thought of bloated, messy software/webapps/etc as a sort of code-traption.
I think they're less elegant as an example than helicopters because it always seems like there is a non-contraptiony way to achieve whatever in software. But as anyone in software knows, even the most elegant designs always stumble in the face of sufficiently complex requirements. Comparing these well-intentioned but ultimately messy contraptions of software to a respectable physical creation like a helicopter does make me feel better.
I haven't finished the whole text, but once I started to grok what the author was describing I immediately thought of bloated, messy software/webapps/etc as a sort of code-traption.
I think they're less elegant as an example than helicopters because it always seems like there is a non-contraptiony way to achieve whatever in software. But as anyone in software knows, even the most elegant designs always stumble in the face of sufficiently complex requirements. Comparing these well-intentioned but ultimately messy contraptions of software to a respectable physical creation like a helicopter does make me feel better.