Gabba Gabba Hey

Just watched a film about the Ramones and while watching it was struck by the similarity between the early DIY ethic in punk and the whole ALT.NET movement. I was always more into the DIY than the safety pins, bondage pants and no future - for me punk meant tearing down the things which stood in your way.

First there is the whole us and them, outsider, rebel feeling going on. We are forging communities and loose alliances. Lean, mean and punky [ASP MVC, NHibernate, jQuery, Agile] vs. the big bloat prog rock [ASP.NET, Entities, Prince2]

We are meeting in the back room of pubs with revolutionary zeal to spread the message of change , talking with passion about how we feel in our bones how software should be developed. Feelings which have grown out of observing and learning - where learning follows experience rather than checklists and process which fly in the face of our experiences. The corporates ain't going to persuade us to accept HowToDevelopSoftware dogma - we've got software development under investigation - prodding it, turning it over and inside out, figuring out what works and what is waste.

And the similarity with the Ramones?

Despite their simple tools and methods they were admired for their tight fast performances, 2 minute iterations, rapid audience feedback, simple, easily understood structures - a condensed symphony. In the beginning they knew nothing and realised that you make progress by picking up your instruments and using them with vision.

I'm a 3 chord coder, getting stuck in, doing what I can, learning from it and going round the loop again, no twiddly solo coding for me, I'm happiest in the gang of us, pusing against my limitations and exploring the possibilities

Hey Ho, Let's Go!