[Pdx-pm] RE: [Pdx-pm] Software development and The Rules

[Josh Heumann]

Having just graduated with a CS degree (and there being fully entrenched in 
wanting to do things the "right way"), I'm interested to see the way that 
programmers are illustrated here.  

Programming has, following the popularity of the internet, been brought to 
the masses.  This is a good thing, because a lot of cool things get written 
that us cs nerds wouldn't have thought of, and a lot of people became cs 
nerds despite their degrees in Art History or Philosophy.

The downside is that it is easy to make something work and not think about 
the peripherals such as maintenance, readability (which hasn't been 
mentioned here and is a HUGE problem among perl programmers) and future 
addons, etc.  Essays like Mythical Man Month and No Silver Bullet are 
standard reading in the cs world (although I had to opt to read them), and 
were revolutionary when they were published, but don't get read often 
enough to stem the rising tide of "poor" programming practices.

Basically, everyone should read them.  There are probably some others that 
I didn't mention, but those specifically.

Okay, I'm done.
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