Just saw this today on eSkeptic:

My confidence in venturing into science lies in my basic belief that as in science so in Buddhism, understanding the nature of reality is pursued by means of critical investigation: if scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.

– His Holiness the Dalai Lama from his book The Universe in a Single Atom

Gotta love that quote. I have great respect for that man.

One of the coolest things about working at patterns & practices, is getting to bump into Ward Cunningham (inventor of CRC cards, wiki and much of the ideas and thinking behind Extreme Programming). Last month I went to see Ward give a talk over at MS Research. During the presentation I tried to type into my phone many of the funny and insightful things he shared with the group. Here are some of my favorites.

Talking about software development methodology…

"I don't claim to be a methodologist, but I act like one only because I do methodology to protect myself from crazy methodologists."

Talking about the lack of data on pair programming effectiveness…

"When a manager asks for hard data, that's usually just his way of saying no."

Talking about code smells…

"There is a programming smell here… which is kind of like the smell in your refrigerator, you know. There's a sign that there's something wrong, but you can't quite put your finger on it. But you know if you leave it there, its only going to get worse."

Talking about testing, TDD, etc…

"What I'm really doing is I'm trying to preserve the right for a programmer to think while he's typing. If you feel that it’s not going well, you can stop and say 'What did I get wrong? Let me correct it.'"

I do not believe in any philosophies of how science is done. It's essentially an almost existential process of asking questions about how the world works. There are different styles. Some people will be hugely useful, as well as hugely happy, spending their lives going down a narrow channel, learning more and more and more about something. Others with a shorter attention span, you might say, will be happy hopping around and are more interested in the earlier stages  of something: what are the essentials of this, and then leaving the elaboration of that to people of a different kind. That kind of personality is not necessarily the person who would flourish on a large team that's going to spend 10 years on a problem. You need both. And I belong to the short attention span set.

-- Lord Robert May interviewed by Jocelyn Selim, Discover Magazine, November 2004, p23.

Editor's note: I think I belong to the short attention span set too.