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From: doylep@ecf.toronto.edu (Patrick Doyle)
Subject: Re: Another Way Of Thinking About Patterns
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Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 13:45:38 GMT
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In article <rmartin-0609961800230001@vh1-042.wwa.com>,
Robert C. Martin <rmartin@oma.com> wrote:
>
>It is easy to sit behind the wheel of a car while driving accross a bridge
>and say to yourself: "Who cares how the bridge was built."  But the remark
>is very foolish.  It is rather like a civilzation that is horribly dependent
>upon technology; in which most of the citizens believe that technology is
>evil, or too hard to learn, or just for nerds.

  It is foolish to say "who cares whether the people who built this bridge knew
what they were doing".  It is important to know that the systems you rely on
were created using good methodology.  However, I don't think it's quite so
foolish to say "who cares how this bridge was built".  There's a difference
between knowing it was done right, and knowing HOW it was done.

  Similarly, solutions to problems rely heavily on being formulated using good
mothodology, but they don't rely on what that methodology is.

 -PD
