TITLE: The Program Is In The Programming
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: April 27, 2015  2:33 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
<P ALIGN="right"><EM>
 I would rather have too little architecture <BR/>
 than too much because that might interfere  <BR/>
 with the truth of what I say.  <BR/>
 -- Ivan Turgenev
</EM></P>

How can agile approaches to software development create coherent
programs?  Don't we need a plan, a well-thought-out design to follow
closely?  Without one, won't we end up with a mess?

Let's turn
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2015-04.html#e2015-04-26T09_55_25.htm">
   again</A>
to Italo Calvino for some perspective.  He is known for novels with
intricate structure and acknowledges that, for at least a decade,
the "architecture" of his books occupied more of his mind than it
should have.  Yet his novels never seemed to follow closely any of
his advance plans:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 I spend a lot of time constructing a book, making outlines
 that eventually prove to be of no use to me whatsoever.  I
 throw them away.  What determines the book is the writing,
 the material that's actually on the page.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

The ultimate architecture of a book comes to life alongside the book
itself, hand-in-hand with the writing.

And so it can be with software.  Programmers can and should think
about what they are building but, in the end, what determines the
program is the programming, the material that's actually on the
page or in the browser.

Again, we must careful not to take the analogy too far.  Programs
are often created for external clients with specific technical
requirements.  Programmers are not usually free, as novelists are,
to change the product they are creating.  Even so, design is how
we make the product, not what it does.  Whether it evolves during
the course of programming or is specified up-front, the client
can receive the product they asked us to make.

Ward Cunningham once gave what is, for me, still the best definition
of design:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Design is the thinking you do when you make something.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

The most important product of that thinking is not a design document
or an architecture.  It is the mind that is prepared to make the
thing you need to make.
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