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Developer Manifesto – You Are an Artisan, Not an Engineer
- taylodl 9y agoThe term artisan always makes me think of pizza. How about referring to ourselves as smiths instead? Imagine upon being asked what do you do for a living and responding that you're a codesmith!
- uberstuber 9y agoI like the term craftsman
- cortesoft 9y agoI prefer the term 'code monkey'
- Danihan 9y ago"IT guy"
- cortesoft 9y agoI have personally been pushing for the title of "HerpDerpgineer"
- MikeTaylor 9y agoMy official job title is Software Guy.
- disconnected 9y ago"Software simian"
- tw1010 9y agoI always found that people who prefer craftsman over engineer are those who're afraid of math (no offense).
- cwbrandsma 9y agoWord definitions follow ar·ti·san noun: artisan; plural noun: artisans a worker in a skilled trade, especially one that involves making things by hand. synonyms: craftsman, craftswoman, craftsperson; skilled worker, technician; smith, wright, journeyman; archaicartificer "artisans from around North America will demonstrate their crafts" smith noun: smith; plural noun: smiths 1. a worker in metal. short for blacksmith. It seems artisan is more appropriate.
- technologyvault 9y agoBut doesn't the word "smith" give more of an impression of doing grunt stuff? Developers tend to be much more creative than that.
- torstenvl 9y agoExcept that "smith" had already been adopted metaphorically for the knowledge class. Writers are "wordsmiths" rather than "sentence artisans." It also emphasizes the fact that coding is an iterative process. Sometimes you have to strip the whole thing down, make your codebase malleable again, and pound away to refashion it a different way.
- ashark 9y agoI'd say that at our best we might claim to be Hephaestans. Wikipedia gives him all of "blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors". Basically a god of engineering and the more construction-ish arts. The literary and musical arts, et c., would belong to others. "Thetis of the silver feet came to the house of Hephaistos, imperishable, starry, and shining among the immortals, built in bronze for himself by the god of the dragging footsteps. She found him sweating as he turned here and there to his bellows busily, since he was working on twenty tripods which were to stand against the wall of his strong-founded dwelling. And he had set golden wheels underneath the base of each one so that of their own motion they could wheel into the immortal gathering, and return to his house: a wonder to look at. These were so far finished, but the elaborate ear handles were not yet on. He was forging these, and beating the chains out." - The Iliad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestus Probably we should choose Hephaestans over Vulcans, to avoid confusion.
- yborg 9y agoThe term 'smith' always conjures up an image of a large sweaty man with a hammer in his hand and a horse's behind next to his face.
- pcurve 9y agoCalling ourselves artisan and craftsman, makes it feel like we're embarrassed about how other perceive us. It feels like we are borrowing titles from other professions in effort to legitimize our profession. (or inventing new ones) Software "Engineer" Software "Architect" * "Designer" Solutions * Distinguished * Software "Evangelist" "Technologists" * Specialist
- LeoNatan25 9y agoI disagree about “engineer” vs “developer”. “Engineer” and “architect” are much more nuanced and hard to distinguish.
- throwaway2016a 9y agoI was expecting an article focussing on how making software is not engineering said to myself, "not this again." But the article isn't arguing that, the article seems to be arguing we are something more than engineers. There is a subtle implication that engineers are hyper pragmatic and the only thing that is important is that it works. My wife who is a biomedical engineer and makes robots might disagree. In fact, I don't know many good engineers of any kind that stop at "just working." I think this artisan argument could also be applied to other types of engineering as well. However, the title is slightly off, it should probably be "You Are an Artisan, Not JUST an Engineer" --- the two aren't mutually exclusive and the author even acknowledges that in the first paragraph.
- jacquesm 9y ago> But the article isn't arguing that, the article seems to be arguing we are something more than engineers. But we are not even engineers, let alone more. There are some people active in the production of software that would qualify as engineers but that's a tiny fraction and they're not going to be found too far from medical devices and aerospace.
- spraak 9y agoIn the UK at least, from my experience there, the term 'engineer' is applied to many more people than I would have expected. E.g. "an engineer is coming to look at my boiler". In the US the term 'technician' seems more common/appropriate.
- tjr 9y agoAerospace software engineer here. :-) I feel perfectly content to deem my work as "engineering". I can understand why someone quickly whipping up a small web application (which is not to imply that all web applications are quickly whipped up, nor that all web applications are small) might reasonably feel that their work is not engineering. So since I've also done quick little web applications, what do I think the difference is? The aerospace work includes precise operational requirements. It includes formal verification tests which demonstrate that the requirements are met. Code is reviewed; documents are reviewed; reviews are reviewed (not joking, though typically only a sampling subset). Code is subject to formal coding standards; code repositories are subject to formal standards; tools for testing software are subject for formal standards (and documented/reviewed/etc. in their own right). Software that goes onto aircraft is tested in simulations; tested in limited on-ground hardware scenarios; tested in extensive on-ground hardware scenarios; tested on board flying aircraft. The entire process (and the following of process) is reviewed. The end product is signed off on, and, for example, in the case of U.S. commercial aerospace, certified by FAA representatives. Sounds nothing at all like developing web applications! Or does it? A consumer-facing startup web application might have little or no requirements. Testing may be ad hoc. Nothing is reviewed. Coding standards don't exist. Does the software seem to do what is intended? Ship it! But what about web applications for banking? I've never worked in banking, but I suspect the requirements are fairly robust. (And if in fact they are not, they easily could be.) I suspect that tests are comprehensives, traced back to the requirements. (And if in fact they are not, they easily could be.) I suspect that the software goes through several rounds of testing, that code is reviewed, that coding standards are adhered to. Maybe not to the same level as aerospace, but probably pretty solid. So what? Is financial software engineered? I would imagine so. Maybe not as strictly as aerospace -- or maybe stricter! I honestly don't know. But I can easily imagine comparable scenarios. So if we can engineer financial software, can we not engineer productivity software? We sure could! How about social media software? You bet! Even games? Why not? I think that all software could be engineered. But in fact it probably shouldn't be. If you want to make a change on software on an aircraft, it might be five minutes editing code in Emacs, surrounded by a year of paperwork and process. That'd be ridiculous for an iPhone game. It'd probably be excessive for a financial application, but maybe some measure of that would be appropriate. Perhaps there is (or should be) a spectrum of software engineering. At one end, we take extreme measures to ensure quality and process, because (literally) lives depend on it. At the other end, we can hack out whatever we want and it doesn't matter. Most software lies somewhere in between. Maybe some of it should consider moving more toward one end or the other. :-) [Incidentally, it's common to repeat the phrase, "never roll your own cryptography software". I think it would be totally fair to say "never roll your own flight control software" too. But the people actually writing flight control software aren't necessarily top-tier 0.000000001% brilliant developers. They are, though, surrounded by sufficient process and review that their work is nearly guaranteed to be solid by the time it takes to the air. We could probably do something similar with cryptography software, if there were a model in place (and, I reckon, funding in place) for all of the surrounding infrastructure to engineer it properly.]
- rb808 9y agoI'd think reality is more like tradesman or software builder rather than engineer. Most devs aren't doing anything new or different. There are probably guys in the building next door probably doing something similar.
- throwaway2016a 9y agoEngineers of any kind usually aren't doing something radically different. Even if you are building a robot, which is undoubtedly engineering, you probably have a team down the road building something similar. In fact, most software engineers I know are very interested in the cutting edge and research pieces. You can make a living as a mechanical engineer without using an equation newer than a few hundred years.
- Animats 9y agoYou can make a living as a mechanical engineer without using an equation newer than a few hundred years. Have you seen what's happened to control theory in the last 15 years? There's so much new math that new PhDs are having trouble deciding which parts to learn. Control theory has imported much of machine learning in addition to all the classic control theory, and they want bounds so they know the machine learning parts won't do something stupid.
- throwaway2016a 9y agoSorry, that came out wrong. I am absolutely not implying that there have been no advancements in mechanical engineering. Just that it is possible to find a job where you will not encounter them. I am confident you are right that PhDs are doing great cutting edge stuff.
- dctoedt 9y agoThis reminded me of something written by noted surgeon (and Rhodes Scholar and MacArthur Fellow) Atul Gawande [0]: <blockquote> If medicine is a craft, then you focus on teaching obstetricians to acquire a set of artisanal skills—the Woods corkscrew maneuver … , the Lovset maneuver …, the feel of a forceps for a baby whose head is too big. … You accept that things will not always work out in everyone’s hands. But if medicine is an industry, responsible for the safest possible delivery of some four million babies a year in the United States alone, then a new understanding is required. The focus shifts. You seek reliability. You begin to wonder whether forty-two thousand obstetricians in the Unites [sic] States could really safely master all those techniques. You notice the steady reports of terrible forceps injuries to babies and mothers, despite all the training that clinicians received. After Apgar, obstetricians decided they needed a simpler, more predictable way to intervene when a laboring mother ran into trouble. They found it in the Cesarean section. </blockquote> Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance, at 192 (Henry Holt & Co. 2007) (emphasis and extra paragraphing added). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande
- jMyles 9y agoThat is one of the most subtly disturbing snippets I've ever read about the state of the medical "system" in the USA.
- aidenn0 9y agoAtul Gawande is usually fairly disturbing.
- luddypants 9y agoCan you elaborate on what you find disturbing? The implication of high failure rate, or the shift of focus to reliability?
- spraak 9y agoIf I had wrote that, it would have been about how it led to the development of the Cesarean section operation. In the US, and many other places, the prevalence is much higher than the medical need. When there is no medical need for a C-section, there really isn't any benefit over the risks to the mother and child. Also--and this will probably sound quite hand-wavy or too woo-woo for most of HN's demographic (I assume)--there is great emotional benefit from a baby passing through the vagina.
- Splendor 9y ago> "Walking the trail of tears with each other..." I know the historical reference but I'm not sure I understand what the author is actually talking about here.
- cortesoft 9y agoOh my god this is such pompous article. None of these things are specific to software developers, and 90% of the things it says are platitudes that mean nothing. There are even some that are just wrong, like the 'throw it away' section. "It's not the code that is valuable. It's the understanding you've gained from building it." What? Maybe at some places, but where I work, the software I write is NEEDED. And this: "Never be afraid to throw something away and do it again. It will almost always be faster to build and much better the second (or third, or Nth) time around." Has he never heard of the second system effect?
- xirdstl 9y agoI mostly agree. They're selling a development platform. You could look at this at marketing fluff aimed at stroking the egos of their prospective customers.
- cortesoft 9y agoAh, makes sense. 'Come, write your code on this artisanal platform, carefully crafted by Tibetan monks in their 5th year of a 10 year vow of silence'
- spraak 9y ago> Has he never heard of the second system effect? My team and I were recently working on a replacement for an old service. One weekend I thought, "I could re-write the whole thing in a way better, clever-er way!" I stayed up way too late hacking on it. It was my masterpiece. Sunday night I uploaded it to our org's GitHub and then on Monday the team lead was like "Um, what's that?" and then I knew that the feelings I'd ignored while writing it were true: it was a waste of time. We weren't going to use my new re-write.
- cortesoft 9y agoBut it was better!
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- diyseguy 9y agoreminds me of this: http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/ http://manifesto.softwarecraftsmanship.org/
- 2_listerine_pls 9y agoWhat about just calling them developers, crazy idea.
- trollopTheJope 9y agoThat's right, you're not an engineer.
- Cozumel 9y agoThis is why I never touched Laravel, 'The PHP Framework For Web Artisans'. I'm not an 'artisan'. I just code.
- spraak 9y agoSee other comments in this thread clarifying that `artist !== artisan`
- jacquesm 9y agoArtisan? I wish. For the most part a plumber would be more appropriate. I'd like to see a plumber marketing themselves as an artisan.
- orthecreedence 9y agoNo, an artisan is an artisan. A developer is developer. That's not to say some developers aren't artisans, but a lot of people are developers because it pays the bills: they build things, and are good at building things, because they see it as a means to an end. Some do it as a means of expression: it is their medium for creation. Both modes of operation, and everything in between, are equally viable and valid. I guess my point is, it's fine to write code and NOT be an artisan. I'd argue that most people who code are not as interested in the creation aspect of is as much as "doing cool stuff" or making money...and that's fine. But let's not paint all developers with an artisan brush.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> No, an artisan is an artisan. A developer is developer. That's not to say some developers aren't artisans, but a lot of people are developers because it pays the bills That's the norm for artisans (which is just a skilled worker in a trade involved in making things, especially by hand), not a distinction. Artists may be a different story, but artists aren't the same thing as artisans.
- alexanderdmitri 9y agoI'd argue the diff between artisan & artist is semantics. Conceptually they both yearn for the elevation that comes along with your output being considered an art.
- UK-AL 9y agoI feel this is dismissing engineers. Most i know engineers also care about elegance and asethetics. You may not like it, but engineer is probably the closest match to an existing profession.
- danielalmeida 9y agoThis is all over the place and reads like a collection of random pieces of advice. Why not stop at "An engineer makes something work. You are more than that. You are an artisan." and present a reasonable line of argument?
- jv22222 9y agoOf course, the original comparison between coders and artists was made by Paul Graham in Hackers and Painters: https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-Computer/dp/1449389554 https://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Painters-Big-Ideas-Computer/d...
- treehau5 9y ago> Writing stable code and being available to fix your bugs, even sometimes after hours. Nah I'd rather be available during hours to fix my bugs. Call me old fashioned, but does anyone not believe your work should not follow you home? I love what France is doing with the "right to disconnect"
- LeoNatan25 9y agoHear, hear! The inabilty of the young folk to disconnect from their work is disasterous.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- chiefalchemist 9y agoArtisan? As in artisan breads? I'm not so sure that's the best fit. Yes, I rise. But I don't want to be sliced and buttered :) Ultimately, the issue for me is when people use the wrong title (?) to describe their level of experience, skill and overall sweet spot. For example, a programmer is not a developer, and a developer is not an engineer. So when a programmer describes themselves as an engineer - to someone who has no idea what the difference is - that just ruins it for everyone. Not to point fingers in a negative way but the WordPress community is notorious for such shenanigans.
- BurningFrog 9y agoThis whole discussion is about the meaning of the words "artisan" and "engineer" far more than it's about programming or anyone's professional role.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- alexanderdmitri 9y agoHearing the word "artisan" is just a flag letting me know I need to switch mental registers if I hadn't already: if (inputStr == "artisan") { ENV = "MARKETING" };
- flavio81 9y agoI don't think this manifesto adds any kind of value to developers. The word that come to my mind is "shallow". Pretentious, pompous. Of course "coders" will love it. Perhaps UI and UX design is an art, but at the end software requires engineering. The only manifesto i'd recommend is this one: http://programming-motherfucker.com/ http://programming-motherfucker.com/
- brett40324 9y agoUpvote for Zed's link. I was pleased to see that!
- falcolas 9y agoOur field may be grounded by solid engineering and conceptual foundations, but we have much more in common with the medieval blacksmith than we do a modern machinist. For example: Given a bog-standard relational database and the requirement to be able to create, read, update, and delete rows in the database, what is the best way to present that via an HTTP API? What language will be used? What will the API look like? What edge cases will be considered? How long will it take? You'll probably get a unique answer for every dev you ask, even though they'll all consider it to be a trivial task. You'll probably also get fairly unique clarification questions about the spec from each one as well. I'm not sure, when we can put the same task to 100 people and get 100 unique results (and few (if any) would agree to monetary penalties for failures), that we're strongly positioned within the engineering discipline.
- anotherevan 9y agoWhile the article may be considered a bit trite, and people argue over the word "artisan", there were a couple of points that brought salient anecdotes to mind. Own Up to Failure I've worked in quite a few places where arse covering was a full-time activity. Where, "I don't want to make a decision because then I can't change my mind later," is and actual quote during requirements gathering. For some reason, I've never been bothered being honest when I've screwed up. I distinctly remember one time when one of the client's staff came to me about a problem, loaded for bear, fully expecting a fight on their hands. About one minute into the discussion, having got my head around the problem I said, "Yeah, that was my stuff up. I'll get that fixed." There was a palpable sense of shock, followed by delight and relief. ...and that leads in to... Trust is Earned Where I was brought into high-level management meeting with the same client about some important issue, and my opening remark was, "That's not a bug, it's a feature," as which point my project manager nearly had kittens on the spot. But I then explained through the details of what was going on, agreed on a couple of minor adjustments that would make things clearer in the future, and everyone came away satisfied. Don't know if I could have gotten away with that if I hadn't already had the reputation for being straight with people and owning my own mistakes.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoThe engineering debate aside, I don't even like how programmers fancy themselves as "developers", which is very non descriptive, considering that around half of all human jobs are about "developing" something. People who write programs should just call themselves "programmers" for the sake of clarity.