Your Opinions are Ruining Computer Science

Josh Hicks
Jul 20, 2017 · 2 min read

Is web development a science? If so, what kind of science could ever hope to be taken seriously when its practices and methods are based on the cotton candy foundation of so many opinions? Would you trust a physician whose prescription was based on feelings? Did Einstein write his famous equation after having a cup of tea and pondering how he felt about it? No. That’s obvious you say? Then why do developers do it? Web development has become, or maybe always was, a tangled mass of opinions floating in a sea of larger trends. I would personally like to start a new trend. From now on I will require cold hard facts to back up any statements related to web development.

If a suggestion or theory contains the words “I feel”, or “I think”, whatever comes after those words should not be taken seriously. At best they are nothing more than a hypothesis that has yet to be tested or proven. How many JavaScript frameworks are there today? This number grows every day because of developers who feel that they can solve the same problem that has been solved hundreds of times over. How is that possible? Is there no way to once and for all settle this matter? Can we not engineer some kind of test to demonstrably prove which framework is the best? Or more likely, that none of the frameworks are the best.

The same kind of opinionated tyranny rules coding standards as well. If you think that if/else statements should be replaced with ternary operators because of X, then I ask that you spell out your reasoning and prove it, or shut up and stop muddying the waters. I think at a dangerous place where most front-end developers are using tools they don’t understand written with standards they can’t defend. This is a shameful place for any science to be. So, what should we do about it?

Get facts based on impartial evidence. It’s as simple as that. The next time that someone on the internet, or a member of your team decide to throw in their two cents about how something should be, or how a feature should work, push back. Ask them to back up their claim with hard evidence. Why do you think that? Did you test it? Can you reproduce it? Has anyone else verified your findings? These are the kinds of questions that should be driving our industry, not the latest hipster framework or pattern that everyone will abandon a year from now. Don’t be grass in the wind. Be the mountain. Always have a reason for what you’re doing and never allow yourself to float away in the waves of opinions that flood our field. Never take someone’s word for it.

Give me facts or GTFO.

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Josh Hicks

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Software engineer, writer, traveler, weight lifter. Find more from me at www.hirejoshhicks.com

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