This document discusses cargo culting and memes in software engineering. It defines cargo culting as reproducing outer forms without understanding the underlying context, using examples from after World War 2. Memes are described as widespread ideas that lack scientific proof. The document examines several examples of practices and beliefs in the software industry that resemble cargo culting or memes, such as outdated optimization techniques and unquestioned design patterns. It emphasizes the importance of questioning established practices and not treating any idea as an absolute truth.

1. CARGO CULTING
AND MEMES IN
FORGET EVERYTHING YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW

2. ME, MYSELF AND I
13 years consulting
Wide range of
businesses &
customers
blog.frankel.ch &
morevaadin.com
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@nicolas_frankel

3. ALSO AN AUTHOR
https://leanpub.com/integrationtest/
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@nicolas_frankel

4. MY JOB
hybris:
oE-commerce product
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@nicolas_frankel

5. CARGO CULTING VS MEMES
http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/athletes-at-starting-line-on-race-track-photo-p215478
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@nicolas_frankel

6. CARGO CULTING
• Reproducing outer form
in order to get some
benefits regardless of
contexts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JohnFrumCrossTanna1967.jpg
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@nicolas_frankel

7. MEMES
• Widespread ideas
• With no (or shallow)
scientific proof behind
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@nicolas_frankel

8. DISCLAIMER
“All characters
appearing in this
work are fictitious.
Any resemblance to
real persons, living or
dead, is purely
coincidental.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Morgan_County_-_Mann_road_-_horse_mannequin_-_P1080692.jpg
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@nicolas_frankel

9. DO NOT BELIEVE ME!
You are not getting
sleepy!
I do not want to
spread more cargo
culting & memes
oTry…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caf%C3%A9_wall.svg
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@nicolas_frankel

10. CARGO CULTING
Imagine living on a
paradise island
Free from daily world
contingencies
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@nicolas_frankel

11. Then come some
white people in birds
of steel
They build some
stuff, and bigger
birds of steel
come, with bunches
of people inside
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@nicolas_frankel

12. And the birds of steel
have plenty of good
food inside
With no need to go
fishing…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FishingVillage_HaLongBay_Vietnam_%28pixinn.net%29.jpg
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@nicolas_frankel

13. When they all go
away, what’s the
smart thing to do:
oGo fishing again?
oOr build the same stuff
and hope to attract
more birds of steel?
Very crude summary
of Cargo Culting
during WWII (in the
Pacific)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JohnFrumCrossTanna1967.jpg
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@nicolas_frankel

14. THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAIL
Once upon a
time, there was a
young developer
He started using Java
1.3
And was taught that
local variable
declaration was
heavy on
performance
http://bit.ly/NOv2cq
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@nicolas_frankel

15. Some years later, he
became an « expert »
And wrote some good
practices guidelines
Including declaring
local variables
outside loops
int nb = 0;
for (int i = 0;
i<n; i++) {
...
}
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@nicolas_frankel

16. He was very happy
And all developers
happily followed his
rules
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@nicolas_frankel

17. Until… a new
developer came in
town
And threw the
gauntlet by claiming:
« You shall declare your
variables in the narrowest
scope possible »
This meant inside the
loop
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@nicolas_frankel

18. The « expert »
accepted the challenge
And coded a small
snippet to assert his
claims
It failed miserably…
JDK 1.4 was smart
enough to produce the
exact same bytecode
regardless where the
variable was declared
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@nicolas_frankel

19. The « expert » was
sorely disappointed
But realized a very
important fact
« There’s no
universal truth, it all
depends on the
context »
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@nicolas_frankel

20. Also applies to:
oFood
oReligion
oSports
oYou name it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shunsuke1_20080622.jpg
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@nicolas_frankel

21. FACTS
At this time, I don’t
know if that was ever
true
oI suppose it was
I found nothing
supporting this (or
the opposite) on the
Internet
oDownloading and
installing Java 1.3 sucks
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@nicolas_frankel

22. DATA TRANSFER OBJECT
Once upon a
time, there was
platform called J2EE
Which provided a
bunch of API
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@nicolas_frankel

23. EJB Entity - a real
heavyweight
object, was bound to
the container
So Sun crafted a
magical artifact, the
DTO
To allow for data to
go outside the
container
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@nicolas_frankel

24. The birth of EJB 3
brought a new
Golden Age
And freed people of
the tyranny of the
EJB Container
Sadly, many
developers still flock
to the banner of the
DTO
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@nicolas_frankel

25. ALTERNATIVES
1. When no association
required
oUse the entity directly
2. Use eager associations
3. Use the
OpenSessionInView
filter
o…
4. Call getters to force load
5. Use JOIN FETCH
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_A34,_Donnington.jpg
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@nicolas_frankel

26. XML IS BAD
10 years ago, it was
all XML
oCan be validated against
a schema
XML became evil with
the coming of
annotations in Java 5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:XML.svg
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@nicolas_frankel

27. CRITICS AGAINST XML
Verbose
Are not compiled
oErrors (beyond
grammar) are
discovered at runtime
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@nicolas_frankel

28. SELF-ANNOTATED CLASSES
@Service
@Scope("prototype")
public class MyBean {
@Autowired
private MyRepository myRepo;
...
}
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@nicolas_frankel

29. Pros Cons
Everything in the same place Couples code to Spring
Compiled Prevents reusability
Allows bad design
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@nicolas_frankel

30. ALTERNATIVES
XML
JavaConfig
oCompiled
oWith no con of self-
annotated classes
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@nicolas_frankel

31. JAVACONFIG EXAMPLE
@Configuration
public class JavaConfig {
@Bean(scope=PROTOTYPE)
public class myBean() {
return new MyBean(myRepo());
}
@Bean
public class myRepo() {
return new MyRepository();
}
}
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@nicolas_frankel

32. RELATED TO CARGO CULTING
Copy-Paste Driven
Programming
Reverse Cargo
Culting:
oForget the form because
the context is different
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Da_Vinci_Vitruve_Luc_Viatour.jpg
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@nicolas_frankel

33. SPOTTING CARGO CULTING
“We’ve always done
like that”
“It’s always been
working”
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@nicolas_frankel

34. HOW NOT TO CARGO CULT
Question reasons
behind decisions
You cannot always be
up-to-date
oListen to others and
their arguments
oAdmit you’re wrong
(when you are)
Yes, it’s hard and
time-consuming!
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@nicolas_frankel

35. MEMES
Cargo Culting can be
remedied if the cultist
is rational and willing
to listen
Memes are way more
pervasive
Based on faith
And you never can
convince a faithful to
renounce his faith
oOnly if he’s not a true
faithful
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@nicolas_frankel

36. MY ILLUMINATION
The Leprechauns of
Software Engineering
https://leanpub.com/leprechauns
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@nicolas_frankel

37. THE 10X PRODUCTIVITY RULE
“A good programmer
can be as 10X times
more productive than
a mediocre one”
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@nicolas_frankel

38. SACKMAN & AL. 1968
“exploratory experiments (...) to compare
debugging performances of programmers
working under conditions of online and
offline access to a computer”
Ratio of 28:1
oSubject 7 required 170 hours to program the
algebra program in a batch environment in
machine language
oSubject 3 required 6 hours to program the same
problem in ALGOL in a time-shared environment
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@nicolas_frankel

39. Ref. Direct? Task
type
Sample
size
Pop. Measure Variation
Curtis 1981 N Debug 27 Pros Time-to-
compile
22:1
8:1
Mills 1983 Y ? ? ? ? 10:1
DeMarco &
Lister 1985
Y Program
to spec
166 Pros Time-to-
complete
5,6:1
Curtis & al.
1986
N N/A N/A N/A N/A Various
Card 1987 N Project ? Pros LOC per
staff hour
Not
claimed
Boehm &
Pappacio
1988
N N/A N/A N/A N/A Various
Valet &
McGarry
1989
N Project 150 Pros LOC per
staff hour
Not
claimed
Boehm
2000
Y Project 161
projects
Pros Manager’s
evaluation
Not
claimed
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@nicolas_frankel

40. PRODUCTIVITY IN SOFTWARE
Which metrics?
oLOC?
oAny is trivial to game...
Which task?
oMust be the same in
order to compare
Which population?
oPros have other things
to do
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@nicolas_frankel

41. MY EXPERIENCE
There’s a difference in
productivity
oBut I never could quantify
I can only say if one
developer is more
productive than
another in a specific
area
Software is a team
effort!
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@nicolas_frankel

42. BUT REJOICE!
Other domains are
not free of memes
either
oProject Management
oGraphical Design
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@nicolas_frankel

43. Source: http://www.peterbormer.com/
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@nicolas_frankel

44. THE SOURCE OF “TRUTH”
Software Engineering Economics –
Boehm, 1981
Made famous in Rapid Development –
McConnell, 1996
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@nicolas_frankel

45. It makes sense that
uncertainty decreases
with time passing...
Does it make sense
that:
oIt is symmetric?
oIt follows f(x) = -a/x?
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@nicolas_frankel

46. MY EXPERIENCE
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@nicolas_frankel

47. IMAGES ARE READ LTR
When I was younger (a long time
ago), I was told that images should be
designed to be read left-to-right
oAnd right-to-left for native Arab / Hebrew
speakers
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@nicolas_frankel

48. Then came a device to follow eyes
movements
And they made an experience on the
TV
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@nicolas_frankel

49. 49
@nicolas_frankel

50. RELATED TO MEMES
“No True Scotsman”
Logical fallacy
Ideology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bagpiper_in_Edinburgh_001.jpg
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@nicolas_frankel

51. NO TRUE SCOTSMAN
“Scotsmen do not put
sugar on their porridge
- I’m a Scotsman and I
put sugar on my
porridge
- No true Scotsman
sugars his porridge”
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
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@nicolas_frankel

52. CODE IS SELF-DOCUMENTING
“Yet I cannot make this
code clear without
comments.
- Then it’s bad code!”
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@nicolas_frankel

53. AGILE DELIVERS
“Yet my last Agile
project went wrong.
- Then it must not have
been truly Agile”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pair_programming_1.jpg
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@nicolas_frankel

54. IDEOLOGY
Memes and
ideologies are based
on faith
oMemes are largely
shared
oIdeologies are more
restricted
• Counter-ideologies
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@nicolas_frankel

55. THIS IS CRAP
It’s not proper:
oObject-Oriented
Programming
oFunctional Programming
oYou name yours
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pet_Waste_Station.jpg
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@nicolas_frankel

56. THOSE ARE WAYS!
My goal is to achieve
those properties:
oReadability
oTestability
oMaintainability
So long as I get
them, I don’t care
oBetter to have a unique
paradigm in an
application
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@nicolas_frankel

57. SPOTTING MEMES
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Foam_-_big.jpg
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@nicolas_frankel

58. THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST
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@nicolas_frankel