Peter Seale's weblog

Thursday, February 19, 2009 5:12:52 AM UTC 

Or, how two unlike things can seem alike!

A while back, I followed a fascinating link from programming.reddit titled Pablo Picasso's version of refactoring: Reducing a drawing to 12 perfect pen strokes.

As the story goes, Pablo Picasso created a series of eleven lithographs of a bull in profile. He first created a detailed, accurate image of a bull. Then, for his next lithograph (I don't know what a lithograph is either, let's just pretend these are drawings from now on) he changed some aspects of the bull, accentuating its bull-ness. As he progressed, he began to remove detail, slowly replacing photorealism with smaller expressions of the same aspect, retaining the bull-ness. His last drawing was twelve or so thin strokes, a stick figure still roughly recognizable as a bull.

As the programming.reddit title indicated, this sounds a whole lot like refactoring!

It's super impressive, and I dearly urge you to look at the progression of Picasso lithographs yourself (click link below):

Now for the dangerous part.

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Extra space added so you follow the link before viewing the section below; you'll miss out on the full experience otherwise!

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So you're with me, right?

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I was feeling great until I read this, the first comment on the reddit comments thread:

This is something with which I want to leave you. The next time someone makes a bad analogy, nail them with this Descartes quote. I can't pronounce Descartes properly, but that won't stop me, and it shouldn't stop you either. If in doubt, try a "dude, the French philosopher dude," sprinkle the word "dude" anywhere you're uncertain; they serve as TODOs for your vocabulary.

Aside: in true reddit fashion, this is the next highly-rated comment thread:

…and following that, unintentional, then intentional, references to realultimatepower.net.

Linking this discussion to the present day

This misuse of seeming similarity is (among other reasons) why a lot of us are bugged with recent CodingHorror posts. Specifically, let's take list a):

List A: SOLID principles et al

Here's list b), in The Ferengi Programmer (emphasis added):

List B: 285 Ferengi Rules of Acquisition

The Ferengi are a part of the Star Trek universe, primarily in Deep Space Nine. They're a race of ultra-capitalists whose every business transaction is governed by the 285 Rules of Acquisition. There's a rule for every possible business situation—and, inevitably, an interpretation of those rules that gives the Ferengi license to cheat, steal, and bend the truth to suit their needs.

And in case that was a coincidence, here's the list from his next post, responding to the standard rebuttal:

List C: processes and methodologies

 

So the question to you: are these three lists the same?

I win either way

My logic is inescapable. If you think the SOLID principles (list A) are in fact, as sneaky and extensive as the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition (list B), and are just the newest in a long line of fad methodologies (list C), then hey: I'll point you to the story about the bull, and how we all thought it was similar to refactoring. Except when you think about it, it's wasn't refactoring, it only resembled refactoring on the surface. I mean, come on, he drew pictures of a bull, it wasn't refactoring. I dare you to say the Picasso bull lithograph series was like refactoring.

And there I have you as well! Because if you refute my drawing-a-bull-isn't-like-refactoring argument, then by the very nature of your disagreement that "these two things aren't alike," you're proving that "these two things aren't alike!" Refute my "bull-metaphor doesn't apply to refactoring" argument to the "Ferengi rules metaphor doesn't apply to the SOLID principles" argument, and you've proven the very thing you're trying to argue against! I have you either way!

Next time I see you I'll collect the five dollars you owe me. And before you say to yourself "but I don't owe Peter $5," remember, my logic is irrefutable and you owe me a fiver*. Descartes says so. THE BULL! Pay up.
*this is a real word, people use it