BodeMiller

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Revision as of 05:22, 5 February 2012

For the last decade Bode Miller is the most famous american sportsman (at least in Austria; as Austria is the country dedicated to downhill skiing). Bode decided to write a bibliography and I had the chance to read it during 2011 Christmas break. It is an amazing book for many reasons, including one that touches my view of API design!

I have found Bode's book interesting for at least three reasons. The question is how to present it in an interesting way for expected audience of this website? I'll do it with three easy to remember quotations.

Woods

Grow up in woods, become extraordinary!

I have not grew up in the woods like Bode did, but still I am from a village with few voters on the edge of mountains. At the teen age there used to be a time when I was ashamed of my origin, but over the time, I can only be proud. I have not met many people from more wood-like parts of the world being interested in API design. Moreover I know that our mountains produced more than woodcutters. From the point of API design, it is good to remind us that word robot comes from our county.

Possibly, the more redneck you are, the more radical ideas you can have. Bode was always radical enough! Sometimes he was too radical to allow me to understood, but after reading his book, things make sense. Maybe you want to grow up in in woods to increase you chances to compete in contemporary world!

Skiing

Can't turn? Become an API designer!

Bode complain that for a while, around 1997 he could not find good enough skis to turn. Bode also admits that his snowboard experience showed him what capabilities skis should have. At the end of 1996 (during the winter design trip the Xelfi team decided to have), I had the chance to try the snowboard for the first time. It went surprisingly well, thus I bought my first wikipedia:niedecker. Snowboard was immediately on par with my Volkle P30. However the progress have not stopped. In 1997 I had the chance to use Volkle Rentiger snowboard. At that time I gave up on skis. Snowboard was so much easier to turn!

Bode mentions this in one or two paragraphs of his book. At that time the snowboard was easier to make turns than skis. But (unlike me) Bode has not given up and waited for skis that will be at least comparable to snowboard. Looks like he succeeded (being Olympic medallist at 2002 and 2006). I have not returned back to ski up until 2007, before I needed to care of my children. Up until then snowboard was much more fun to use.

Be Fast!

Is style more important than results?

At one moment Bode asks: is it important to have good style or be fast? And he continues: given the fact that we are talking about a discipline that measures the performance in seconds, the primary measure is speed.

Can we apply that to API design? Sure, because we often have to ask whether it is more important to be backward compatible or be nice. I am amazed that the philosophy of a ski racer (be faster than have a nice style) is the same as a philosophy of an API designer! Why should we believe in old those advices telling us that clean code is going to help us? Calling for a clean code is like asking Bode to finish the race.