
Giles Coren's letter to Times subs - raganwald
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/23/mediamonkey
======
raganwald
Ok, it's a wee bit off-topic. But it's a letter about _passion for one's work_
and _attention to detail_. This is the kind of thing that makes Apple's
products so gorgeous--there are programmers and graphic designers and hardware
engineers screaming profanity when one damn pixel of their work is altered by
someone who has no idea how important a single letter "a" might be.

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helveticaman
The sub-editors' reply:
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/29/sundaytimes.pres...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/29/sundaytimes.pressandpublishing)

Apparently, this was written a long time ago, and only recently surfaced:
[http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/mediamonkey/2008/07/indefinite_a...](http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/mediamonkey/2008/07/indefinite_article_definite_an.html)

------
pg
This is so great.

~~~
astrec
Yet, if you follow the responses both positive and negative, also not so
great.

Let's imagine I'm to python hacking as Giles is to restaurant criticism. I
punch out such a cracking piece of code that Guido himself wept on his first
reading. A hapless QA engineer rewrites my punchline, a lambda compressing not
less than six lines into one, back into a six line function. (As to whether
Guido would in fact weep at such code is topic for another discussion).

I fire off an invective harangue to the QA manager. He posts it on the
intranet.

The other grey beards nod in agreement: "Fucking QA engineers", they mutter,
"'bout time someone showed 'em!"

Meanwhile the rest of the company thinks I'm a pompous, sanctimonious twat.
With a single missive I've repositioned myself from wronged to wrongdoer. And
perhaps simultaneously emboldened the stupid wretch.

Never underestimate the didactic value of a discreet word. (This is, mind you,
a one time offer: Next time said QA engineer gets it in the neck.)

 _Let me add that I love Giles and have immeasurable respect for him as a
writer and critic. He is easily the best fuckin' part of the fuckin' F-Word:
He just over-cooked this one._

~~~
raganwald
I hope you appreciate the difference between the abrasive, obsessive
perfectionist with a drive to create something great and the competent
employee who gets along well with everyone and always put the needs of the
many above the desires of the one.

Both are needed for great companies. Only one is needed for great software.
See also: Linus Torvalds' emails ;-)

p.s. As _I_ read the OP, this was about a situation where editing the original
actually changed the desired behaviour. So the example I would have chosen
would be that a code reviewer, instead of firing back a question about the
one-liner, changes it without any discussion. And breaks the application.
Whereas you seem to be discussing a hypothetical case where changing something
from one to six lines has no effect on the resulting functionality.

~~~
astrec
And whilst I agree a merely competent employee is unlikely to create great
software, I hope you're not saying only abrasive, obsessive perfectionists can
create great software.

As for the example,

    
    
      def f(x,y):
          return x > y
    

no more captures the intended behaviour of

    
    
      lambda x,y: x > y
    

than "go for nosh" does "go for a nosh." Nuance.

But all this dances around the actual point - that Giles managed to transform
himself from wronged to wrongdoer with a single expletive laden harangue, and
that this is good for no one, least of all Giles.

~~~
raganwald
It may be possible to create great software without being abrasive. It is
certainly the case that you can be abrasive without creating great software.
I'm not so sure that you can dispense with an obsession for your vision of
"perfection."

~~~
astrec
Agreed. I'm also quite firm that you can maintain an obsession for your vision
of "perfection" without being a prick about it.

~~~
raganwald
Now right away we see the OP's point. If I rewrote your sentence, the
implications of using the words "firm" and "prick" in close proximity would be
lost ;-)

~~~
astrec
Bravo! ;)

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akd
You can tell this a really educated guy. He's a restaurant reviewer but he
draws vocabulary from chemistry, talking about the "dual valency" of a noun.

------
ivey
I woke the baby up while reading this out loud to my wife.

It was worth it.

