With apologies to Dennis Miller as I don’t want get off on a rant here but when did the word purist switch from being used to describe going too far in applying something to being the reason for not doing anything differently and justifying the status quo?
Whenever I hear the word used these days I cringe; badly. It’s like fingernails on a blackboard to me and the use of purist in this way is growing and growing. The word purist is being used against fundamental or “101” practices.
Here’s just a small sampling. These are real quotes from real managers in charge of real dollars and real people.
Them: We don’t test our fixes before we ship them.
Me: <obvious reply>
Them: Ah well we can’t be too purist…
Them: Our app is OO. We use an OO language, an OO environment, OO class libraries , etc., but no, we don’t have an object model.
Me: <obvious reply>
Them: Ah well we can’t be too purist…
Them: We don’t use version control because it doesn’t work.
Me: <obvious reply>
Them: Ah well we can’t be too purist…
I could go on and on with such examples, and these are not in any way about “should we or shouldn’t we” types of issues or “reasonable tradeoffs” and so on. They are about fundamentals.
It’s like observing someone that walks by jumping one foot forward only - the same foot every time - and the other foot just drags along the ground (or they freely admit to you that this is how they walk). And when you make the obvious reply that walking involves moving one foot forward and then the other, they reply “Ah well we can’t be too purist…”
No. No. No!
It’s not purist. It’s fundamental. It’s like breathing. Oh wait, you do that by…
 | Rants author: Dennis Miller asin: 038547802X |
 | Ranting Again author: Dennis Miller asin: 038548853X |
