"Cowboy coding" vs. "real" software development

Chad Dickerson points out this piece by Frank Steele (formerly of CNN online) about running a business using Macs, Linux, and Python scripting. While I certainly believe that sustainable businesses have to have some formal planning and software development and maintenance methodologies, I am increasingly impressed with the responsiveness and productivity that can be gained from widespread use of modern scripting langauges like Python and Perl.

I especially liked this line:

...I hired a Windows system administrator I had worked with at CNN, who knew all about Windows, but used it anyway.

Frank also points to John Ousterhout's 1998 article called Scripting: Higher Level Programming for the 21st Century which I intend to spend some time reading.

I'm adding Frank's Nicest of the Damned blog to my list of regular reads.