Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: The "Itch Scratching" philosophy
Author: David McCusker Posted: 9/16/2000; 7:11:24 PM Topic: scriptingNews outline for 9/16/2000 Msg #: 21415 (In response to 21406) Prev/Next: 21414 / 21416
Dave Winer: We use the tools, we're sick of how awful we are, but we also know that they're the best that are available anywhere.Many developers eventually get burned out or near to it after fighting too many lost fires, hosing down software buildings that metaphorically burn to the ground anyway. The ones who hang on get a gleam in their eyes as they consider new approaches.
Hmm, I nearly went off track there. Anyway, tools can use more capital investment so they will come closer to the current sweet spot in managing ever larger bodies of complex software. Many older tools are long in the tooth, and aren't up to the growth curve that software development has been following.
Sometimes I wonder if this is related to the increasing number of hours per week considered normative for software developers. (Let's ignore the fact that everyone will claim they have always worked the same long hours for the last twenty years.) Folks try to shore up weak tools by throwing a heroic number of work hours at the process to clean messes.
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