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Comment by geofft | Hacker News Reader

> If you can't even do THAT, then sorry, all your valuable experience is way less useful than someone like Martin Fowler, because I'm not learning anything from you.

There is a small gap in this reasoning: that something is written down and sounds like a good idea doesn't make it a good idea. If you select on "people who have successfully written books about software architecture," you're in no way guaranteed to select for actual good ideas. It's quite possible none of the advice works.

That said, your broader point is taken, and I'll think about how to write things up about actual design lessons I've learned in practice, so still thank you for calling this out.

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There is a small gap in this reasoning: that something is written down and sounds like a good idea doesn't make it a good idea.

That's his point, doesn't matter if is a good or bad idea, but that someone took the time to sit down to think through, write and publish some ideas that will give developers a new perspective on how to do things that they would never thought about, whether those ideas are good/bad, apply or not to the software we are currently creating is up to us to analyze and decided.

Suppose we weren't software engineers, but instead bridge engineers or physicians. Would you then accept "someone took the time to sit down to think through, write and publish some ideas" that we could either take or leave depending on how persuasive a writer the author happens to be?

I think it is entirely reasonable to ask "what reason to we have to think this is good advice"?

Perception, Comprehension, Analysis, Publication repeat.

Somewhere in there, it's doesn't matter if it's "advice" or whatever you want to call it, as long as it's shareable elucidation you can apply your own reasoning...but if you don't bother to follow the pattern, it doesn't matter what you think. Asking someone else to have done these steps for you, is a proxy for a lack of interest, imo. Everyone wants to be lazily told things they either already know or can agree with easily, but being critical in a constructive way is work.

I think the point of both 'geofft and 'bradleyjg is that these writings are mostly opinion pieces, and it's justifiable to not trust them based solely on popularity and author's status - none of which involve anyone actually verifying the soundness of all this advice. It's also justifiable to ask for more concrete evidence, since an ethical responsibility of an author is to not waste people's time.

If you were building a bridge, you wouldn't accept that you have to use particular type of beams just because a certain well-known bridge architect Fartin Mowler recommends it, and tells stories of how good bridges are when they're using these beams. You probably wouldn't discard the advice either, but you'd ask for more detailed, first-principles explanation, you'd ask to see the plans and the studies of the bridges with these beams, etc.

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