Programming and Blasphemy

My colleague Bruce Tate gained fame by writing books that chronicled widely known problems with the early Java frameworks for writing web applications. In his books "Bitter Java" and "Bitter EJB" he eloquently exposed Java's dirty laundry: The way that most of us were taught to use Java often resulted in bloated and fragile applications.

The overwhelming response to Bruce's books was: "Hurray!" Finally we had more than our own opinions as defense against mandates from Engineering Managers to adhere to the "Official" Java guidelines... We could point to Bruce's books as proof that we weren't the only programmers who found fault with the "standards"... and we could use Bruce's later book "Better, Faster, Lighter Java" as a guide towards more sanity in our designs.

In many ways, Bruce was a Prophet for the Java community... or maybe a Saint. Certainly he was an Evangelist for those of us who wanted more lightweight solutions. Bruce had "seen the light" and he wasn't afraid to spread the message.

I think the use of religious terminology is appropriate; Programmers tend to feel very strongly about their tools and languages to the point of an almost religious devotion. It's hard to explain why someone would become so attached to a tool, but I've experienced it myself.

So Bruce was a Prophet/Saint/Evangelist for the Java community, but he was never a Martyr... Bruce's message was welcomed, not shunned, and there were never any serious attacks on his credibility or motives.

All that changed with the publication of Bruce's book "Beyond Java"... In this book Bruce expounds the Sacrilegious belief that the Java language itself may not be the best language for programmers to adopt.

"Heresy!" cried the Righteous Priests of Javadom... Bruce had crossed the line from constructive critic to Blasphemer.

The end result is that Bruce has severed his long blogging connection with the Java.Net community, and he's moved his blog to his own site: Paddle Like Hell.

In the world of RSS feeds there is no real harm done when someone moves their blog from one site to another. I can still keep tabs on what Bruce it up to...

But on a deeper level this bugs me. Programming languages and frameworks are not Holy. Programmers are not Priests. It is a very good thing that we care so deeply about our craft... but Bruce's tale seems more like bickering over the architecture of a Chapel rather than arguing about the nature of God.

I'm probably just over-reacting... I am tired of religious zealots in the "real world" who murder people for wearing tennis shorts. News like this sickens me, and maybe that's increasing my own intolerance for those who are intolerant...

We need to have people who question the norm... or we won't make improvements, but destructive criticism has to be countered forcefully. Beats me what the answer is; for programming or for religions.