Joel on Software

2001/11/20

Larry Wall famously said, "People understand instinctively that the best way for computer programs to communicate with each other is for each of the them to be strict in what they emit, and liberal in what they accept." I think that the evolution of HTML has proven that this isn't such a great idea. In fact, the stricter the API is about its input, the more likely the code is going to work in funny situations. The designers of Java got it right when they decided that nothing about the Java spec should leave any choice to the compiler developers (at least, not in the gratuitous way that C did, where the size of basic data types was not fixed). A better quote comes from Russian Field Marshal Suvorov: "A hard drill makes an easy battle." You want your compiler and your development environment to be as strict as possible; you want it to literally generate random return values for GlobalSize so that you don't get into the habit of counting on something that won't be there everywhere; you want to use French international settings on Chinese Windows 2000 with an absurd color scheme, DVORAK keyboard, trackball, 640x480 VGA mode, and huge ugly fonts on your development system so that you remember to bake in the code that adjusts for all these things. Then your application will be buff and strong and it will laugh in the face of wimpy problems like people who use commas instead of dots as the decimal. Ha. I eat commas for breakfast, your code will say, with a Russian accent.

A Hard Drill Makes an Easy Battle

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You’re reading Joel on Software, stuffed with years and years of completely raving mad articles about software development, managing software teams, designing user interfaces, running successful software companies, and rubber duckies.

About the author.

I’m Joel Spolsky, founder of Fog Creek Software, a New York company that proves that you can treat programmers well and still be highly profitable. Programmers get private offices, free lunch, and work 40 hours a week. Customers only pay for software if they’re delighted. We make FogBugz, an enlightened project management system designed to help great teams develop brilliant software, and Fog Creek Copilot, which makes remote desktop access easy.