Writing Opinionated Software
Sometimes I got myself thinking what makes a software have its own opinion and be considered “optioned software”. Would it be related to the language philosophy or to the programmer itself, or both of them?
People usually say Rails is a good example of optioned software. I can say I take part of the same opinion, but I’d like to take this point a little more further by not emphasizing only the software, but the programmer and how its culture could be incorporated (and not avoided) in the software it produces.
Out there, in the software market, when hiring people, companies usually claim they give plenty of room for people to innovate, share ideas and try new things and all that cool stuff we usually hear from Googles’s employees about independence and space to build your own skills and develop ideas within the job. But what we found most in the reality is the same copy & paste philosophy everywhere. The programmer usually don’t have time to try new things, because he is stuck with a pile of tedious tasks to complete and the deliverable is always behind schedule, which appears to be a endless cycle, project after project.
I believe, Ruby on Rails came to “save” the people from these kind of starving companies, which likes to hire young and “virgin” employees to mold them to the “Software Factory” style. Ruby on Rails lets the programmer surpass most of the tedious tasks, so it lets the programmer have free time to innovate in other areas of the software. It depends, of course, on the company philosophy, but when companies envise the real profit they can benefit from having a happy employee and tailoring the software for the user real needs, the companies will would like to have adopted the Ruby on Rails earlier.
Ok, but where the programmer opinion comes in ? I strongly believe by having more time to think, the programmer can not only fix issues, but can also suggest new features, test and present them very quickly and best of all, he also can earn more as people usually like to pay for what’s well done.
All in all, writing optioned software is not about yelling what’ s your favorite band, but it’s all about programming and being happy. I am a happy programmer and you ??
[update 08-01] Thanks Soleone for your suggestion
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It is also important to note the role of the product manager in this cycle. In environments where the pressure for short schedules on “ship-every-quarter” philosophy, is hard to have time to innovate even with rails.
I’d also say that while rails facilitate the creative development speeding up the boring tasks and letting us focus on what matters most, is also stimulates feature creeping and makes harder for the management team to have strong change control.
Once in a while companies that have jumped in rails too early, too deep, without the proper maturity level required to deal with such dynamic technology will either learn to do it, or die trying.
I don’t wanna be a smart-ass, but it should be “opiniated” software, not “optionated”, right?
And yes, I am a happy programmer since I moved from Java/SOAP/ to Ruby/REST/Rails !
Cheers, Sole
@Soleone, thanks!