http://soft-arts.net/2008/01/30/supreme-ultimate-software-engineering/ iPhone and Mac development, Tech, Internal Martial Arts, and Life Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:37:55 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 http://soft-arts.net/2008/01/30/supreme-ultimate-software-engineering/#comment-2186 Bill Simpson Wed, 30 Jan 2008 18:12:42 +0000 http://soft-arts.net/2008/01/30/supreme-ultimate-software-engineering/#comment-2186 This is an interesting comparison, and I can see the argument as both a practitioner of taiji, and a software developer. To me, hacking is acting with intent, but without direction. It's like un-vectored force. Yes, you'll get somewhere, but where? On the flip side, an elegant architecture never fulfilled an order. You have to have both thought, and action, in order to make software. If you want to carry the taiji argument to its logical conclusion, one could say that architecture, patterns, requirements, and design make up the root energy, or chi, and programming, unit testing, and refactoring make up the movement. This is an interesting comparison, and I can see the argument as both a practitioner of taiji, and a software developer. To me, hacking is acting with intent, but without direction. It’s like un-vectored force. Yes, you’ll get somewhere, but where? On the flip side, an elegant architecture never fulfilled an order. You have to have both thought, and action, in order to make software. If you want to carry the taiji argument to its logical conclusion, one could say that architecture, patterns, requirements, and design make up the root energy, or chi, and programming, unit testing, and refactoring make up the movement.

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