Programmer Musings

Programmer Beliefs

The practice of developing software depends on a large body of arcane knowledge and skills. Almost all of this knowledge is based on logical principles and built up to the point that we can do amazing work. Because programming has it's roots in applied mathematics, there is an impression that programming is also a logical, rational process.

The Rational Ones

Many stereotypical programmer types seem to consider themselves to be rational people. In fact, we seem to believe that we are more rational than the average person. Our work requires a level of detail that most people can't deal with (or so we believe). Computers just do logical manipulation of bits, and our programs are (fundamentally) just logical and arithmetic manipulation of bits and numbers. Therefore, our work is definitely logical and rational.

There's just one problem with this view. Some of what we do is pure personal preference. That is not surprising, since we are still human. For that reason, we still make many decisions based on what we like or what we are used to, rather than for purely rational reasons.

Rationalizing the Preferences

However, we tend to believe that (at least in software development) we are making decisions for logical, rational reasons, not because of mere preferences. That sounds too much like choosing something because it's fashionable. Or worse, picking something for no reason. As rational software developers, we would never do that (assume appropriate amount of sarcasm in that statement).

If you want to see programmers completely lose their cool, start a discussion about the best editor, programming language, or indenting or brace-placement style. There's a reason why people refer to these as religious wars. We've all seen programmers get into major arguments over these issues, and they all have careful and sometimes very detailed arguments about why their choice is the right one. More importantly, since each of them believes they have made the choice for rational, objective reasons, the logical conclusion is that anyone who doesn't agree must be wrong. And the rational thing to do is convince the other person of the flaws in their belief and force them to bow to the better objective argument.

The Subjective Preferences

There's just one problem. These choices really are subjective. Each of us made the choices we did for very irrational reasons:

• It was the first style or language we learned.
• Someone we admired used that editor.
• The idiosyncrasies of that tool fits our brain better than the alternatives.
• We want to fit in with the community that uses that tool.

This point was driven home to me years ago, when another programmer and I were discussing brace placement in C. We were trying to develop a standard for our group and the two of us came down solidly in opposite camps. As we were arguing, I suddenly realized that he did not see the code the same way I do. I don't mean this in any deep philosophical sense. I mean it literally. The placement of the braces affects the way I pattern match while scanning code. But, when he saw code, the braces were less important than the indenting.

I actually stopped arguing for a while when I realized that. I finally was able to explain what I saw when looking at the code and we ended up deciding to use the style that was most common in the code, rather than changing to either of our positions.

Don't Assume

When one of these issues comes up, remember that they really are matters of preference and convention. No one approach is provably, rationally, better than the others. It's more important to realize that the other person is making the choice for reasons that make sense to them, and you won't be able to convince them otherwise. The important point is for us to compromise enough to be able to work together, and solve real problems.