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On professionalism in software

jakewins.com

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Re: On professionalism in software

#11

Post by amirmc »

fishnchips wrote: post #5

> stop seeing yourself as a lone individual developer Sorry for a gloomy vision but: 1) the 'corruption' of the modern software business is driven by business and not technical leaders; 2) even vocal and principled engineers have kids to feed and even those without such commitments don't leave free massages in the office easily; Those of us working in larger organisations are just that when it comes to fighting for p…

Those companies start somewhere and these days are certainly driven by technical folks. Even Google was a small team once and yet the business model adopted was to harvest user data in order to target ads. Twitter took a similar route. I think it's disingenuous to attempt to separate 'business' from 'technical leaders', as if the latter have no involvement in the former.

(edited: see rest of thread)

Re: On professionalism in software

#12

Post by MBlume »

nick_whiu wrote: post #9
MBlume wrote: post #8

> We, as an industry, need to stop seeing users as a resource from which to extract value. I mean, yes , but... at the end of the day this is a capitalist society, and if you want to build, say, Google, you do not get your funding by convincing a central planner that this will benefit people, you get your funding by convincing an investor that you can make them rich. The question is how can we preserve the best inter…

capitalist society is not a static - we can and must change this to benefit people

Ok, but what does that mean? Change how?

Re: On professionalism in software

#13

Post by fishnchips »

amirmc wrote: post #11
fishnchips wrote: post #5

> stop seeing yourself as a lone individual developer Sorry for a gloomy vision but: 1) the 'corruption' of the modern software business is driven by business and not technical leaders; 2) even vocal and principled engineers have kids to feed and even those without such commitments don't leave free massages in the office easily; Those of us working in larger organisations are just that when it comes to fighting for p…

Those companies start somewhere and these days are certainly driven by technical folks. Even Google was a small team once and yet the business model adopted was to harvest user data in order to target ads. Twitter took a similar route. I think it's disingenuous to attempt to separate 'business' from 'technical leaders', as if the latter have no involvement in the former. (edited: see rest of thread)

> yet the business model now is to harvest user data in order to target ads

This was their original business model. Previous to that they had none and were pretty much considered doomed.

Re: On professionalism in software

#14

Post by amirmc »

fishnchips wrote: post #13
amirmc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those companies start somewhere and these days are certainly driven by technical folks. Even Google was a small team once and yet the business model adopted was to harvest user data in order to target ads. Twitter took a similar route. I think it's disingenuous to attempt to separate 'business' from 'technical leaders', as if the latter have no involvement in the former. (edited: see rest of thread)

> yet the business model now is to harvest user data in order to target ads This was their original business model. Previous to that they had none and were pretty much considered doomed.

I edited to reflect that the business model was adopted. It doesn't alter my point.

Re: On professionalism in software

#15

Post by calibraxis »

MBlume wrote: post #12
nick_whiu wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

capitalist society is not a static - we can and must change this to benefit people

Ok, but what does that mean ? Change how?

There's a zillion alternatives to capitalism. Those of us whose imagination got sucked out of our heads, unfortunately seem incapable of exiting a framework like neoliberalism's "capitalism vs. Soviet Union". As if there's nothing to drink beyond Coke vs Pepsi.

Re: On professionalism in software

#16

Post by matt_panaro »

jakewins wrote: post #3
zirkonit wrote: post #2

I can agree, and I can disagree. I definitely wouldn't compare software engineering to medicine; rather, I see a more apt analogy in, actually, _engineering_ – whereas designing a firearm is just as noble and ethical Software is eating the world, good and bad, and our role as a profession is to help make the transition of the entire society, altruistic and greedy, charitable and fraudulent, to the highly automated mo…

On your first point, I agree, the medical comparison did not come across as well as I hoped. The intent with "branching out" past engineering in the text was to highlight Software Engineering as a profession with ethical responsibilities. Engineering is a closer comparison - but medicine or journalism is much more mature in how they think about ethics, in my opinion. Engineering disciplines are apt to think of the to…

are you familiar with Michael O Church? https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/programmers-...

Re: On professionalism in software

#17

Post by justin66 »

fishnchips wrote: post #7
jakewins wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was somewhat thinking about this when I wrote that sentence actually, and it's a topic that needs its own post at the very least. That said, and with the caveat that I'm aware of the vast amounts of issues around this, I will simply say that others have thought about this problem before us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Organized_Labour

I think organised labour sounds too 19th century to most people in the business. None of my colleagues that I surveyed in my previous (big) company was supportive of those. Trade unions of old used to fight for better working conditions and what are they to fight for in the likes of Google? Better phones for Christmas? That may be an argument until for one reason or another you run foul of your boss or some awkward c…

> Trade unions of old used to fight for better working conditions and what are they to fight for in the likes of Google? Better phones for Christmas?

Something for software engineers at that level would, rather than being a trade union, probably resemble the professional associations doctors, lawyers or "real" engineers have. Like the ACM or IEEE except... you know.

Re: On professionalism in software

#18

Post by dllthomas »

angersock wrote: post #10

Professionalism in software is a weird term. I think this essay would've better been named "On ethics in software engineering". From a purely professional standpoint, we should've long ago settled on a few languages to do our tasks, and focused on exploring how to write and manage decade-long projects in those cases, or at least how to rapidly develop and shift codebases to meet the new year's business needs. We've d…

We do build software like we build bridges. Over budget, behind schedule, and with worrisome issues left hanging over our heads.

Re: On professionalism in software

#19

Post by pXMzR2A »

fishnchips wrote: post #7
jakewins wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was somewhat thinking about this when I wrote that sentence actually, and it's a topic that needs its own post at the very least. That said, and with the caveat that I'm aware of the vast amounts of issues around this, I will simply say that others have thought about this problem before us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Organized_Labour

I think organised labour sounds too 19th century to most people in the business. None of my colleagues that I surveyed in my previous (big) company was supportive of those. Trade unions of old used to fight for better working conditions and what are they to fight for in the likes of Google? Better phones for Christmas? That may be an argument until for one reason or another you run foul of your boss or some awkward c…

> I think organised labour sounds too 19th century to most people in the business.

Just wanted to note that this is an eccentricity specific to the US.

Re: On professionalism in software

#20

Post by fishnchips »

pXMzR2A wrote: post #19
fishnchips wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think organised labour sounds too 19th century to most people in the business. None of my colleagues that I surveyed in my previous (big) company was supportive of those. Trade unions of old used to fight for better working conditions and what are they to fight for in the likes of Google? Better phones for Christmas? That may be an argument until for one reason or another you run foul of your boss or some awkward c…

> I think organised labour sounds too 19th century to most people in the business. Just wanted to note that this is an eccentricity specific to the US.

Now is it? I actually live in Ireland and most folks around me think exactly the same. The local trade union [0] is on its deathbed and I haven't heard of a single IT multinational with any form of employee representation.

[0] http://www.siptu.ie/

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