Edit See also: http://meaganwaller.com/posts/framework-whipped

Edit #2 Martin has edited his post to remove the crass remarks, and stated that he is sorry for any offence caused

I am a 59 year old programmer who was brought up in a male dominated industry, operating in a male dominated society. To my regret, old habits and attitudes, that I thought were long dead and conquered, pop up from time to time. So, if you see me making a mistake like this, you yell out and stop me. And don’t let any of my peers get away with it either.

Dear Mr Martin, I think you’ve done it again, with your recent piece Framework Whipped.

For your future use, here is a quick guide to wether a metaphor is going to be a useful one for talking about software: Are you talking about fucking or slavery? Might as well stop, more likely than not, you’ll sound like a creepy uncle again.

Although you tell me to keep frameworks away “from the family jewels”, i’m unsure what I gain from treating business logic as being the penis of software. I’m really unsure of why I should consider frameworks as “concubines to be enjoyed on my terms”.

I’m not saying let’s not talk about fucking your secretary, owning slaves, or sub/Dom relationships. I’m saying the use of sexual imagery in explanations is usually “just a bit of fun” that alienates anyone who isn’t using penis driven development.

I can imagine this went through your head as you wrote this, so you removed any mentions of “he” or “she”, but unfortunately it’s still dripping in machismo that it reads like a bad Mad Men fanfiction. Repeat after me: using frameworks is nothing like owning humans for sexual exploitation.

The moral is “don’t tightly couple your application to your framework, especially the business logic”, not “you can stick your penis in a framework, but marriage is out!”.

Yours sincerely,

tef