I have to say that this article succeeds at saying nothing.
It starts with a invalid premise (that 99% programming advice amounts to "Do The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work") and then "criticizes" DTSTTCPW by bringing up completely unrelated issues (thinking vs. coding ratios), along the way making vague and disconnected distinctions between systems and application programming (is MySQL a system or an application? What is the crucial characteristic between those that makes some programming advice applicable to one but not the other).
The opposite of of DTSTTCPW is either doing things that don't work or things that do work but are more complex than necessary. There really isn't room to disagree with DTSTTCPW.
Thinking vs. coding is a false dichotomy. At the end of the day I don't care if Richard Hipp thinks for 8 hours and types for 10 minutes or if he types for the whole day without thinking first, as long as SQLite is a kick-ass software.
Personally I found that there's a (very small) limit to how much I can design up front (thinking phase) before I start implementing my ideas (coding phase). I invariably find that coding improves my understanding of the problem (often forcing me to update my designs) as well as giving me more ideas (it's not like my brain shuts off during coding - thinking is going on in parallel).
This is the core of agile argument: we're not smart enough to think about everything up front so the only realistic option is to start small and simple and build more complex things as we go and learn.
The author might be content with the fact he hasn't shipped his software in 9 years but I wouldn't take his opinions as relevant to what I aspire to do: writing useful software and shipping it.
It starts with a invalid premise (that 99% programming advice amounts to "Do The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work") and then "criticizes" DTSTTCPW by bringing up completely unrelated issues (thinking vs. coding ratios), along the way making vague and disconnected distinctions between systems and application programming (is MySQL a system or an application? What is the crucial characteristic between those that makes some programming advice applicable to one but not the other).
The opposite of of DTSTTCPW is either doing things that don't work or things that do work but are more complex than necessary. There really isn't room to disagree with DTSTTCPW.
Thinking vs. coding is a false dichotomy. At the end of the day I don't care if Richard Hipp thinks for 8 hours and types for 10 minutes or if he types for the whole day without thinking first, as long as SQLite is a kick-ass software.
Personally I found that there's a (very small) limit to how much I can design up front (thinking phase) before I start implementing my ideas (coding phase). I invariably find that coding improves my understanding of the problem (often forcing me to update my designs) as well as giving me more ideas (it's not like my brain shuts off during coding - thinking is going on in parallel).
This is the core of agile argument: we're not smart enough to think about everything up front so the only realistic option is to start small and simple and build more complex things as we go and learn.
The author might be content with the fact he hasn't shipped his software in 9 years but I wouldn't take his opinions as relevant to what I aspire to do: writing useful software and shipping it.