[Terretta]

> "Your personal anecdotes are not sufficient to establish any meaningful connection between these two."

“Now, I don't want to get off on a rant here ...”

By your definition, most science is "personal anecdotes" if building knowledge through systematic observation and study of hundreds of test cases is merely "personal anecdotes". (See "empirical research"[1].)

By contrast, you wrote "Liking history has nothing to do with coding" but you supplied nothing whatsoever to substantiate that statement, just as you supplied no basis for the statement that working closely with hundreds of developers is not sufficient to establish a connection. Ok, I've managed hundreds, and we've collaborated with thousands. How many developers would be enough to establish any meaningful connection?

You challenged "I'm not sure where you get your link" and I provided the basis for that link: observation of several hundred developers I have hired and employed. That's a reasonable number considering many studies use pools of just a couple dozen test subjects.

Throughout this thread, you have countered remarks I've based on experience, with your own unsubstantiated assertions, sometimes insulting in nature. For example, you wrote "In the 'old days', you must have been writing small programs" when the opposite was true.

Just because you "can't see the value" in a printed code review back in the 80's, or haven't noticed a link between coders with an appreciation for history and an exceptional ability to architect software systems, that doesn't obviate the need to provide at least as much foundation for your arguments as I've provided, particularly if you're trying to call me out for lack of basis.

You said this is "entirely tangential and has nothing to do with what we're discussing", yet this concept of holding the complex in mind is precisely what I opened with, and the theme I've stayed with.

In my experience – which I've scoped so readers can decide for themselves if it's relevant – reading well, taking time to contemplate and be thoughtful, remembering and understanding complexly woven tapestries of information (whether multi-volume literature or world history or computer code), and being able to read long code (or threads) and form a structure of it in one's mind, are all skills signaling good developers.

In my experience, a love of reading, stories, and history in particular, signals a desire for learning, a sense of proportion and place, and a respect for 'the shoulders of giants' likely to help a good developer become great.

“... of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.”

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empirical_research

[dpark]

I have serious doubts about the quality of your "systematic observation and study of hundreds of test cases". I don't believe at all that you've been systematically tracking which of your programmers are history buffs and how it correlates to performance. I think you're a history buff and so you assume that it must correlate meaningfully, just as programmers who are into music, or art, or whatever else do.

No number of developers is enough to turn offhand observation into meaningful correlation. That would require measuring and tracking. It would require more than your gut feeling and confirmation bias. I frankly find it worrisome that you actively choose history majors over CS majors for development work. That says nothing to me except that you have a personal bias.

I stand by my statement that you must be writing small programs if you're willing to print them in entirety on paper. You can find that insulting if you want (it wasn't intended to be), but it's a fact. 10K lines is not a large program in modern terms (though I say it's too large to waste the paper on). It's definitely not large when your team involves multiple developers.

As for code reviews in the 80s, the value is in the review. Whether it's printed on paper or not isn't really very meaningful. It can be nice to have a paper copy sometimes, but it's just that, nice. It's not really a substantive change.

And yes, this history argument is extremely tangential. You did not start with that. You started by saying that you used to spend compile times reviewing the printed code. That has nothing to do with being a history buff. Someone could love doing paper code reviews and hate reading about history. And any link that might exist was certainly not established before you transitioned into talking about history buffs being good architects.

[Terretta]

> I have serious doubts about the quality of your "systematic observation and study of hundreds of test cases".

You still haven't provided your basis for positions, and you're still littering your responses with assumptions or accusations.

> I don't believe at all that you've been systematically tracking which of your programmers are history buffs and how it correlates to performance.

You are mistaken. When, out of hundreds of hires, a handful match the criteria, it's easy to look back at data collected at hiring time, and find out if there are correlations (not causations).

> I think you're a history buff and so you assume that it must correlate meaningfully, just as programmers who are into music, or art, or whatever else do.

Wrong. History isn't a primary interest. I enjoy a variety of things more. I believe most are unrelated to ability to architect software.

> No number of developers is enough to turn offhand observation into meaningful correlation. That would require measuring and tracking. It would require more than your gut feeling and confirmation bias.

See above. Your assumption was mistaken.

> I frankly find it worrisome that you actively choose history majors over CS majors for development work. That says nothing to me except that you have a personal bias.

Prefering to hire a History major with a minor in CS over a pure CS major typically results in better rounded individuals more capable of software architecture, dealing with clients, and collaborating with peers. Unfortunately, out of hundreds of hires, again, only a handful have fit that bill. But none of those who did fit that bill, had to be let go.

This was data collected at interview time, and in fact, on the first such individuals, I was as skeptical as you. Looking back at the collected hiring data about outperformers revealed this correlation. Since then, I've confirmed this curious correlation with several peers.

> I stand by my statement that you must be writing small programs if you're willing to print them in entirety on paper.

Again, your assume that I was printing the large programs. I was not. I was invovled with software developed and used by scientific research organizations, hospitals, and universities. They would hand me a box of fan-fold paper (once even on a hand truck), and say, "Here's the code." I found learning the overall picture faster reading through the stack than scrolling the code on a CRT, particularly thanks to the ability to use a highlighter and Post-Its.

Today, when confronted with a similar task, I prefer an iPad and a good reader with markup tools.

> As for code reviews in the 80s, the value is in the review. Whether it's printed on paper or not isn't really very meaningful. It can be nice to have a paper copy sometimes, but it's just that, nice. It's not really a substantive change.

Given today's technology, mostly agreed. However, research suggests tangible artifacts cement concepts more firmly in our organic brains than digital exposure alone.

> And yes, this history argument is extremely tangential. You did not start with that. You started by saying that you used to spend compile times reviewing the printed code. That has nothing to do with being a history buff. Someone could love doing paper code reviews and hate reading about history. And any link that might exist was certainly not established before you transitioned into talking about history buffs being good architects.

You're right, I didn't bring up history first, I brought up the concept of understanding "a map of the whole". To me, that equates closely with a long multifaceted narrative. You brought up the inability to hold a few pages of code in one's head, and I countered with literature and history. Both code and history are something like the Bayeux Tapestry, where the local is most useful when understood in context of the whole. Come to think of it, the word for our oldest long historical texts, and for what you do reviewing code on a the screen, are the same: scroll.

My ravioli's done baking. Enjoyed the discussion. Cheers.

[dpark]

To be fair, you haven't provided any legitimate basis for your claims about the link between history buffs and software architects. I'm just saying that your claims are unfounded, and so I'm not making any claims that demand support. Your claim that interest in history is correlated closely with ability to architect software is not obvious prima facie, so it demands support to be believable.

I also don't think your handful is a very large sample size, regardless of what correlations you think you see. Honestly, I can't imagine how you're even attempting to gathering this info. Are you just randomly asking people if they've read 1776 during the interview?

But no, hiring "hundreds of developers" is still not the same as actually measuring. I do not believe that you have files that track how history-oriented your developers are (make them take a survey?) vs how productive they are, so that you can find a proper correlation. A proper study of this might yield a strong correlation (though I doubt it), but it would require a lot more than casual observation during your hiring.

I did assume that you were the one printing the programs, because that's how I read your reply. In the 'old days', compile time was a chance to print out your code on fanfold paper ...". If that was a misunderstanding, then I guess it changes the situation. Sure, if someone's already handed you a stack of printed code, why not look through it while compiling?

Hope you enjoyed your ravioli. Cheers.