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I’ve made a conscious effort to stop apologizing for bugs in my code

blog.danslimmon.com

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Re: I’ve made a conscious effort to stop apologizing for bugs in my code

#31

Post by pjmlp »

old-engineer wrote: post #9

Would you be ok with your dentist being OK with her slip-ups? “I really should have checked the x-ray better before I extracted your front tooth. But you know, I’m not sorry. It was an external constraint — there was a queue of patients waiting”. I can’t believe how low we let this profession sink. I hope in 15 years we will look at thies era like we look at the Wild West today. Exciting from a distance but nobody wo…

In some countries at least engineering is a professional title and properly gated, but until we stop allowing people to call themselves engineers after a six week bootcamp in websites design this downpath will keep going on.

Like on that dentist's case, my hope is that as liability persecutions and lawsuits due to faulty software increase, that will eventually be sorted out.

Re: I’ve made a conscious effort to stop apologizing for bugs in my code

#32

Post by adrianN »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #18

Why do software engineers constantly try to project that they are a special snowflake of a profession? Would you accept such nonsense from your plumber, or your dentist, or your electrician? Software engineering is one of the most fundamental building blocks of modern civilization, and yet it continues to be so fragile because of this kind of cavalier attitude. Also, apologizing doesn't mean you have a moral failing.…

No, it continues to be so fragile because software engineers build virtual machines with enormous numbers of moving parts that need to change all the time but nobody wants to pay the price for exhaustive testing (not to speak of the price of formal verification).

We are pretty good at writing software with a very small number of bugs, it just costs a few orders of magnitude more than normal software.

Re: I’ve made a conscious effort to stop apologizing for bugs in my code

#33

Post by diebeforei485 »

Particularly for entry-level folks: if your code passed code review, it means others didn't catch the bug either.

The company could apologize to customers if needed. But it would be insane to make the individual developer apologize to customers.

Re: I’ve made a conscious effort to stop apologizing for bugs in my code

#34

Post by old-engineer »

consp wrote: post #25
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #18

Why do software engineers constantly try to project that they are a special snowflake of a profession? Would you accept such nonsense from your plumber, or your dentist, or your electrician? Software engineering is one of the most fundamental building blocks of modern civilization, and yet it continues to be so fragile because of this kind of cavalier attitude. Also, apologizing doesn't mean you have a moral failing.…

Sure you have a point, but then I do not force my plumber to do his job in far less than the time required, keep changing the plumbing requirements and make him start before the final requirements are seven known.

You are right. This is the flip side of not treating software as an engineering discipline. But both parties are at fault. The business treats us like non-engineers and we don’t behave like ones.

Re: I’ve made a conscious effort to stop apologizing for bugs in my code

#35

Post by lenzm »

Angostura wrote: post #8

He says that this is a fallacy: > It reinforces the idea that any one person or piece of code can be blamed for a given failure. Why is that a fallacy?

A more specific and concrete than the culture and process answers is someone should have reviewed and approved the code.

Re: I’ve made a conscious effort to stop apologizing for bugs in my code

#36

Post by KhalPanda »

A lot of the replies and analogies here are interpreting this as a business-consumer apology. Of course if a business has disrupted a customer's experience through buggy software they should issue post-mortem/apologies/etc.

But I read this as though the author is saying apologies to fellow teammates shouldn't be necessary, which I do at least in part agree with.

Re: I’ve made a conscious effort to stop apologizing for bugs in my code

#37

Post by cerberusss »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #18

Why do software engineers constantly try to project that they are a special snowflake of a profession? Would you accept such nonsense from your plumber, or your dentist, or your electrician? Software engineering is one of the most fundamental building blocks of modern civilization, and yet it continues to be so fragile because of this kind of cavalier attitude. Also, apologizing doesn't mean you have a moral failing.…

Yeah I'd accept it from my dentist. A couple of years ago, they gave me a dental crown for one of my upper right molars. Two months later, it chipped. It felt weird in my mouth.

Why wouldn't this be acceptable? They source that crown from a supplier, and apparently there was a fault with it.

Re: I’ve made a conscious effort to stop apologizing for bugs in my code

#38

Post by zelphirkalt »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #18

Why do software engineers constantly try to project that they are a special snowflake of a profession? Would you accept such nonsense from your plumber, or your dentist, or your electrician? Software engineering is one of the most fundamental building blocks of modern civilization, and yet it continues to be so fragile because of this kind of cavalier attitude. Also, apologizing doesn't mean you have a moral failing.…

Depends on the project, but I'd wager, that software development is a _bit_ more complex than plumbing in many cases.

Re: I’ve made a conscious effort to stop apologizing for bugs in my code

#39

Post by catmanjan »

adrianN wrote: post #32
kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #18

Why do software engineers constantly try to project that they are a special snowflake of a profession? Would you accept such nonsense from your plumber, or your dentist, or your electrician? Software engineering is one of the most fundamental building blocks of modern civilization, and yet it continues to be so fragile because of this kind of cavalier attitude. Also, apologizing doesn't mean you have a moral failing.…

No, it continues to be so fragile because software engineers build virtual machines with enormous numbers of moving parts that need to change all the time but nobody wants to pay the price for exhaustive testing (not to speak of the price of formal verification). We are pretty good at writing software with a very small number of bugs, it just costs a few orders of magnitude more than normal software.

Its because software is always "new"

Imagine if an electricians invented new types of wires for every job they did

I'm not sure why software is the way it is, maybe it will be more like a trade in a few decades...

Re: I’ve made a conscious effort to stop apologizing for bugs in my code

#40

Post by cl3misch »

jwr wrote: post #19

I earn a living from my SaaS. I am a solo founder, responsible for everything. I wrote all the code. My customers pay subscription fees because the software makes their work easier (it's a B2B SaaS, https://partsbox.com/ ). Bugs are solely my responsibility: there is no one else to blame. And bugs mean that my customers paid money for a product which did not work as intended (certainly not as I intended it to work).…

I think the article is talking about (not) apologizing to your coworkers, not costumers.
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