6 ms·

Coder are soldiers paid to do a job. If the army fails, blame the generals that totally do not care about quality and will prefer to pay dozens of obedient cod

by SFJulie 10y ago

Coder are soldiers paid to do a job. If the army fails, blame the generals that totally do not care about quality and will prefer to pay dozens of obedient coders lower and lower that do not care than be eventually facing opposition based on concern in quality. Most over heard arguments before standing up: hey, we don't have a choice, there are all these companies competing with us doing the same. The other arguments for not caring about quality is : not having customers because you are a startup and that well, we will all be wealthy after we will have sold our shares and you will be able to care with the next management. Bosses get what they ask and pay for.

eropple 10y ago
> Coder are soldiers paid to do a job. If the army fails, blame the generals that totally do not care about quality and will prefer to pay dozens of obedient coders lower and lower that do not care than be eventually facing opposition based on concern in quality. "But I was just following orders" isn't an acceptable excuse in any situation. You are inextricably tied to a set of moral obligations by your decision to build things that affect other human beings, and you cannot shirk them or push them upward. They are yours, they remain yours, and attempts to rationalize the abrogation thereof are at best gross. Own your shit. If you cannot do good and do well, then quit. (I have done this; it is not that hard.)
- carapace 10y ago
  That just leaves the field to the incompetents. They are not going to stop inflicting this crappy code on the world just because you quit.
  - eropple 10y ago
    Then own it, and fix it, and be with a clear conscience. I couldn't, at that particular job, and I could do good elsewhere. So I made the decision to do that. "We're just coders, it's not our fault" is not an excuse. Either own your shit (and, implicitly, fix it) or refuse to participate. There is no middle ground.
    - SFJulie 10y ago
      Trying to change job here to avoid taking part in this buffoonery. I can't. Nowadays so much jobs are regulated per diploma/certifications that it is hard beginning again and regain while "older" the momentum for credibility. The funny part I see breadmakers, cooks, construction is also suffering the same problem. I am currently in France, restaurants for average people are so bad, they do stuff that intoxicate people. I can do bread, cooking, fixing bikes and I do better than "pro" nowadays" without a diploma in their field. Something systemic seems to be going on. Like people are just taught to execute and required to obey, and bosses don't know the craft of the people they should lead. Basically being a boss boils down to the capital you can have, and competition seems rigged in favour of people being born wealthy. I don't think that birth merit outweight a sane competition. I find the Figaro monolog that inspired French and US revolution about the old monarchic regimes to be very actual. Weirdly enough author's right says it should be in public domain, but it is impossible to find a link to this essay that is very actual.
      - pferde 10y ago
        The systemic thing is called "professional managers". In the past, only people "from the trenches" were promoted to manage and lead others. Nowadays, we have managers who studied nothing but management. And it shows.
        SFJulie 10y ago
        Karl Marx analysis was that through education you can capture the praxis (savoir faire) and transform it into both stealing it from the craftsman and also making expert in doxein (savoir faire) that knows nothing (Donning Kruger effect). I think that it has always fueled my intuition that a profession should be defined by the craftsmanship and not he education.
    - carapace 10y ago
      You are preaching to the choir: I have quit jobs in the past because they were not serious about doing good work. But my "clear conscience" doesn't help the overall situation. How can we make the industry as a whole less bullshit? That's the question that I want answered.
- rwallace 10y ago
  > "But I was just following orders" isn't an acceptable excuse in any situation. On the contrary, it's an acceptable excuse in lots of situations. The finding at Nuremberg was that there is a line beyond which it stops being acceptable, and murder is on the far side of that line. But most things in commerce are on the near side of it. In other words, a moral obligation to give up your job rather than tolerate sloppiness, applies when you're dealing with safety-critical stuff such that sloppiness could get someone killed. It doesn't apply when the sloppiness will cause minor inconvenience.
greenleafjacob 10y ago
> 11) Actions at the sharp end resolve all ambiguity. > Organizations are ambiguous, often intentionally, about the relationship between > production targets, efficient use of resources, economy and costs of operations, and > acceptable risks of low and high consequence accidents. All ambiguity is resolved by > actions of practitioners at the sharp end of the system. After an accident, practitioner > actions may be regarded as ‘errors’ or ‘violations’ but these evaluations are heavily > biased by hindsight and ignore the other driving forces, especially production pressure.

by SFJulie 10y ago

eropple 10y ago

> Coder are soldiers paid to do a job. If the army fails, blame the generals that totally do not care about quality and will prefer to pay dozens of obedient coders lower and lower that do not care than be eventually facing opposition based on concern in quality. "But I was just following orders" isn't an acceptable excuse in any situation. You are inextricably tied to a set of moral obligations by your decision to build things that affect other human beings, and you cannot shirk them or push them upward. They are yours, they remain yours, and attempts to rationalize the abrogation thereof are at best gross. Own your shit. If you cannot do good and do well, then quit. (I have done this; it is not that hard.)

carapace 10y ago
That just leaves the field to the incompetents. They are not going to stop inflicting this crappy code on the world just because you quit.
- eropple 10y ago
  Then own it, and fix it, and be with a clear conscience. I couldn't, at that particular job, and I could do good elsewhere. So I made the decision to do that. "We're just coders, it's not our fault" is not an excuse. Either own your shit (and, implicitly, fix it) or refuse to participate. There is no middle ground.
  - SFJulie 10y ago
    Trying to change job here to avoid taking part in this buffoonery. I can't. Nowadays so much jobs are regulated per diploma/certifications that it is hard beginning again and regain while "older" the momentum for credibility. The funny part I see breadmakers, cooks, construction is also suffering the same problem. I am currently in France, restaurants for average people are so bad, they do stuff that intoxicate people. I can do bread, cooking, fixing bikes and I do better than "pro" nowadays" without a diploma in their field. Something systemic seems to be going on. Like people are just taught to execute and required to obey, and bosses don't know the craft of the people they should lead. Basically being a boss boils down to the capital you can have, and competition seems rigged in favour of people being born wealthy. I don't think that birth merit outweight a sane competition. I find the Figaro monolog that inspired French and US revolution about the old monarchic regimes to be very actual. Weirdly enough author's right says it should be in public domain, but it is impossible to find a link to this essay that is very actual.
    - pferde 10y ago
      The systemic thing is called "professional managers". In the past, only people "from the trenches" were promoted to manage and lead others. Nowadays, we have managers who studied nothing but management. And it shows.
      - SFJulie 10y ago
        Karl Marx analysis was that through education you can capture the praxis (savoir faire) and transform it into both stealing it from the craftsman and also making expert in doxein (savoir faire) that knows nothing (Donning Kruger effect). I think that it has always fueled my intuition that a profession should be defined by the craftsmanship and not he education.
  - carapace 10y ago
    You are preaching to the choir: I have quit jobs in the past because they were not serious about doing good work. But my "clear conscience" doesn't help the overall situation. How can we make the industry as a whole less bullshit? That's the question that I want answered.
rwallace 10y ago
> "But I was just following orders" isn't an acceptable excuse in any situation. On the contrary, it's an acceptable excuse in lots of situations. The finding at Nuremberg was that there is a line beyond which it stops being acceptable, and murder is on the far side of that line. But most things in commerce are on the near side of it. In other words, a moral obligation to give up your job rather than tolerate sloppiness, applies when you're dealing with safety-critical stuff such that sloppiness could get someone killed. It doesn't apply when the sloppiness will cause minor inconvenience.

greenleafjacob 10y ago

> 11) Actions at the sharp end resolve all ambiguity. > Organizations are ambiguous, often intentionally, about the relationship between > production targets, efficient use of resources, economy and costs of operations, and > acceptable risks of low and high consequence accidents. All ambiguity is resolved by > actions of practitioners at the sharp end of the system. After an accident, practitioner > actions may be regarded as ‘errors’ or ‘violations’ but these evaluations are heavily > biased by hindsight and ignore the other driving forces, especially production pressure.