6 ms·

> Management expects someone to be like a field replicable unit, that you can drop-in and replace on a project. Someone needs to explain to me why would this b

by gizi 11y ago

> Management expects someone to be like a field replicable unit, that you can drop-in and replace on a project. Someone needs to explain to me why would this be a bad thing? They bleed lots of money and that allows the Darwinistic decimation process to kick in and ultimately wipe them out. A fool and his money are easily parted, and that is how it should be. You see, someone who is not capable of programming, should not be allowed to manage programmers, because that simply amounts to an insult. He cannot do what you can do. Therefore, he is an idiot. Nobody wants to take orders from an idiot. Every single business on the planet is now, one way or another, turning into a technology platform. This means that in the end, it is programmers who will own and control everything, and not that bunch of idiots.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
s73v3r 11y ago
It's a bad thing because it doesn't work that way. Software engineers are skilled workers, not assembly line workers. And business Darwinism doesn't really work. Otherwise Comcast would have gone under years ago.
- serge2k 11y ago
  High barriers to entry would have to be a factor in business Darwinism, wouldn't they?
anon4 11y ago
They bleed lots of money and that allows the Darwinistic decimation process to kick in and ultimately wipe them out. Better yet -- they bleed lots of money but don't die out, due to being hugely profitable, so they continue bleeding lots of money and we finally get the trickle-down economy Reagan promised us.
crpatino 11y ago
This is not how life works. It is how you wish life would work. Humans are social animals. The power to cause (or prevent) change in organizations is political in nature. The power to affect operations through technology is at best instrumental to the power to decide what effect is to be implemented. By ignoring these facts, programmers forego the opportunity to be seen as valuable allies and turn themselves into exploitable resources. No amount of progress, or "platformization" is going to change that. Sure, getting high paying jobs with little accountability can be kind of cool, in the short term. But you need to think what happens next. If social Darwinism is true, idiot managers will die out and be replaced with more competent managers. It will take years, but at the end of day, they will wise up. And if so many of them see programmers as a threat they will cut our jobs. To a degree, this is what we are seeing now. The older generation of managers learned that programmers are unreliable, so they outsource not to save money, but to mitigate the risk of having to deal with programmers directly. The next generation is learning that the 3rd parties that isolate them from programmers are unreliable too. I expect the next generation will be very reluctanct to have in house development at all, and that they will limit themselves to existing products from reputable companies, if at all. Hard to tell what happens when that option is also shown to be not reliable.
cbsmith 11y ago
> You see, someone who is not capable of programming, should not be allowed to manage programmers, because that simply amounts to an insult. I hate this trope. There are thousands of professions out there, and most of them involve some kind of specialized knowledge/ability/skill. Do you really expect the head of your organization, the person least likely to have time to do independent work, to be the one with mastery of all the activities in the organization? > He cannot do what you can do. Therefore, he is an idiot. This one is even worse. It's not like programmers know how to do everyone else's jobs, and they aren't idiots. > Nobody wants to take orders from an idiot. Some cynical folks have argued that the advantage is that idiots are easily manipulated... > Every single business on the planet is now, one way or another, turning into a technology platform. Technology != software, and even if it did, very few businesses are viable as a software platform. Software is becoming an increasingly intrinsic part of most businesses, but so is accounting, legal, hr, management... > This means that in the end, it is programmers who will own and control everything, and not that bunch of idiots. I can imagine an accountant thinking much the same thing a century ago...
- mercurial 11y ago
  > I hate this trope. There are thousands of professions out there, and most of them involve some kind of specialized knowledge/ability/skill. Do you really expect the head of your organization, the person least likely to have time to do independent work, to be the one with mastery of all the activities in the organization? Agreed. How would you even run a small town according to this "logic"? You would need to be a professional in many different fields. That's why you have advisers for, and that's why a good manager will listen to the people he is managing.
- WildUtah 11y ago
  I hate this trope. There are thousands of professions out there, and most of them involve some kind of specialized knowledge/ability/skill. Do you really expect the head of your organization, the person least likely to have time to do independent work, to be the one with mastery of all the activities in the organization? It's considered unethical for doctors or lawyers to have their work supervised by anyone who isn't a doctor or lawyer. They enforce the rule through professional conduct rules and boards. the result is very high prestige, pay, and working conditions for people with similar skills and education to programmers. But the atomistic libertarianism and lack of solidarity among programmers makes us targets of mass low wage immigration, outsourcing, and every kind of unpleasant work situation.

by gizi 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

s73v3r 11y ago

It's a bad thing because it doesn't work that way. Software engineers are skilled workers, not assembly line workers. And business Darwinism doesn't really work. Otherwise Comcast would have gone under years ago.

serge2k 11y ago
High barriers to entry would have to be a factor in business Darwinism, wouldn't they?

anon4 11y ago

They bleed lots of money and that allows the Darwinistic decimation process to kick in and ultimately wipe them out. Better yet -- they bleed lots of money but don't die out, due to being hugely profitable, so they continue bleeding lots of money and we finally get the trickle-down economy Reagan promised us.

crpatino 11y ago

This is not how life works. It is how you wish life would work. Humans are social animals. The power to cause (or prevent) change in organizations is political in nature. The power to affect operations through technology is at best instrumental to the power to decide what effect is to be implemented. By ignoring these facts, programmers forego the opportunity to be seen as valuable allies and turn themselves into exploitable resources. No amount of progress, or "platformization" is going to change that. Sure, getting high paying jobs with little accountability can be kind of cool, in the short term. But you need to think what happens next. If social Darwinism is true, idiot managers will die out and be replaced with more competent managers. It will take years, but at the end of day, they will wise up. And if so many of them see programmers as a threat they will cut our jobs. To a degree, this is what we are seeing now. The older generation of managers learned that programmers are unreliable, so they outsource not to save money, but to mitigate the risk of having to deal with programmers directly. The next generation is learning that the 3rd parties that isolate them from programmers are unreliable too. I expect the next generation will be very reluctanct to have in house development at all, and that they will limit themselves to existing products from reputable companies, if at all. Hard to tell what happens when that option is also shown to be not reliable.

cbsmith 11y ago

> You see, someone who is not capable of programming, should not be allowed to manage programmers, because that simply amounts to an insult. I hate this trope. There are thousands of professions out there, and most of them involve some kind of specialized knowledge/ability/skill. Do you really expect the head of your organization, the person least likely to have time to do independent work, to be the one with mastery of all the activities in the organization? > He cannot do what you can do. Therefore, he is an idiot. This one is even worse. It's not like programmers know how to do everyone else's jobs, and they aren't idiots. > Nobody wants to take orders from an idiot. Some cynical folks have argued that the advantage is that idiots are easily manipulated... > Every single business on the planet is now, one way or another, turning into a technology platform. Technology != software, and even if it did, very few businesses are viable as a software platform. Software is becoming an increasingly intrinsic part of most businesses, but so is accounting, legal, hr, management... > This means that in the end, it is programmers who will own and control everything, and not that bunch of idiots. I can imagine an accountant thinking much the same thing a century ago...

mercurial 11y ago
> I hate this trope. There are thousands of professions out there, and most of them involve some kind of specialized knowledge/ability/skill. Do you really expect the head of your organization, the person least likely to have time to do independent work, to be the one with mastery of all the activities in the organization? Agreed. How would you even run a small town according to this "logic"? You would need to be a professional in many different fields. That's why you have advisers for, and that's why a good manager will listen to the people he is managing.
WildUtah 11y ago
I hate this trope. There are thousands of professions out there, and most of them involve some kind of specialized knowledge/ability/skill. Do you really expect the head of your organization, the person least likely to have time to do independent work, to be the one with mastery of all the activities in the organization? It's considered unethical for doctors or lawyers to have their work supervised by anyone who isn't a doctor or lawyer. They enforce the rule through professional conduct rules and boards. the result is very high prestige, pay, and working conditions for people with similar skills and education to programmers. But the atomistic libertarianism and lack of solidarity among programmers makes us targets of mass low wage immigration, outsourcing, and every kind of unpleasant work situation.