Alan Kay classifies most real world code as pop culture (one of the most helpful categories for thinking about it):
http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/interview-wit...
Pop culture is all about identity and feeling like you're participating. It has nothing to do with cooperation, the past or the future — it's living in the present. I think the same is true of most people who write code for money. They have no idea where [their culture came from] — and the Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free?
I appreciate this categorization on many fronts:
- It explains how non-computer science majors have frequently succeeded. In music, you will never find a classical musician without formal training, but frequently find pop musicians who have little or none.
- It shows how some of the same ideas keep being "discovered" by one group while another group sighs and exclaims "we knew about that years ago..."
- Pop culture is inherently youthful, prone to extremes, sensitive to new trends. Sound familiar?
- It explains a vast amount of decision making that goes on in industry. Rather than choosing the absolute best solution from a somewhat abstract technical perspective, a solution that is new and hip (or fits what I was doing in the hey-day of the bosses youth) is selected.
It is over simplistic to simplify real world code as "sucking" (though of course much does). It is like comparing Bach and <fill in your favorite rock/pop star here>. Both produce valid creations that accomplish something, but were made with vastly different intentions and for different purposes.